The Virginia deadline for getting candidates on the June 2012 congressional primary has now passed. The U.S. Senate seat up this year is an open seat, because incumbent U.S. Senator James Webb is not running for re-election. Only one Democrat, and only three Republicans, submitted signatures. Each needed 10,000 signatures, and each submitted at least double that amount. See this story. UPDATE: this post has been re-written on March 31 to show that three Republicans, not two, qualified. The third is E. W. Jackson.

Statewide candidate petitions in Virginia require at least 400 signatures from each U.S. House district in the state. The news story does not say if the candidates complied with the distribution requirement based on the old U.S. House boundaries, or the new ones. The new ones were only settled earlier this month, when the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department approved the boundaries of the new districts.

The Virginia legislature passed a bill last month, saying for 2012, petitions are valid whether they are based on the old districts or the new districts. However, Governor Robert McDonnell still hasn’t signed that bill, HB 1151. He must act by April 10. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

This news story demonstrates persuasively that despite the bad treatment of independent candidates in certain states in the U.S., there are far worse places in the world for independent candidates.

On March 26, the Nebraska Secretary of State announced that the Americans Elect petition has enough valid signatures. Nebraska now has four qualified parties; the others are Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian. The deadline is August 1 for any additional parties that may wish to qualify.