Brad Blog has this story, which says Virginia law enforcement officials are looking into the possibility that a petitioner for Newt Gingrich may have forged names on petitions. It seems somewhat likely that no such investigation would now be occurring if Gingrich himself had not told an Iowa voter in public that “one guy” who worked on his petition submitted 1,500 fraudulent signatures. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for the link.

The Brad Blog story also talks about whether Mitt Romney was improperly registered to vote in Massachusetts in January 2010, when he voted in the special U.S. Senate election.

The West Virginia Secretary of State has put Frank Deem on the Republican primary ballot, for State Senate, 3rd district, after first having told him he could not appear on that ballot. See this story, which was written before the Secretary of State put him on the ballot. The primary is May 8.

West Virginia has multi-member State Senate districts. When a Senate district has two Senators, one is up for election in presidential years, and the other is up in mid-term years. The West Virginia Constitution says when a Senate district is composed of several counties, no more than one resident of any particular county may serve. The Secretary of State originally rejected Deem because the 3rd State Senate district already has one Senator from the county that Deem lives in. Deem argues that the state Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution, and apparently his argument was convincing enough to persuade the Secretary of State to let him run. No Democrat filed in the 3rd district, so if Deem wins his primary, he is virtually certain to be elected, and then the issue may go to court. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

The New York Times of January 31 has this story about the requirement that presidential candidates in France need 500 signatures of mayors or other local officials in order to get on the ballot. France has tens of thousands of places that have their own mayor. However, the requirement is proving difficult to meet ever since the law was changed, to make the petition signatures available to the public. In the past, many small-town mayors have taken the position that they would sign for any presidential candidate, whether they agree with the candidate or not, because they favor inclusive ballot access. But, with the petitions now public, some presidential candidates are having a tougher time gathering the signatures.

The petition is due March 16. Presidential elections in France commonly have between ten and fifteen candidates on the ballot. Thanks to Jerry Kunz for the link.