The regular session of the West Virginia legislature ended the evening of Saturday, March 10. None of the interesting election law bills passed. Bills that failed to pass included: (1) imposing filing fees on write-in candidates; (2) easing the requirements for a party to remain ballot-qualified; (3) changing the order of parties on the ballot so that the party with the most registered voters would be listed first (this would help the Democratic Party); (4) the National Popular Vote Plan bill.

One bill that did passes moves the filing deadline for write-in candidates from six weeks before the primary or election, to seven weeks.

According to this post at Recall Elections blog, in all U.S. history, before 2010, only 21 state legislators in U.S. history had ever faced recall elections. But in 2011-2012, there will have been fifteen.

Foster’s Daily Democrat, a daily newspaper in Dover, New Hampshire, has this fairly lengthy story about the Americans Elect petition for party status in New Hampshire. The story also mentions the Libertarian Party petition for party status. Neither group is finished collecting yet, but each group has more signatures than the required 13,698.

The New Hampshire party petition has existed since 1996, and until this year, had only been used once, by the Libertarians in 2000.

The story also has interesting information about the Americans Elect ballot situation in Maine. The party petition in that state has already been held to have enough valid signatures. The story mentions that in order to remain ballot-qualified in Maine after the 2012 election, the party must have at least 10,000 registrants who actually vote in November (it doesn’t matter whom they vote for). The old 5% vote test for a party to remain ballot-qualified no longer exists, thanks to a change in the 2009 law. The story mentions that Americans Elect in Maine now has fewer than 100 registrants. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.