The Philadelphia Weekly has this comprehensive story about Pennsylvania ballot access. The story is especially detailed on the problem that in Pennsylvania, alone among the states, candidates whose petitions are challenged must pay as much as $100,000 if their petition is found to lack enough valid signatures.

The story couldn’t include every problem in Pennsylvania, and does not mention that in 1986, the legislature provided that only parties with registration membership of 15% of the statewide total are actually ballot-qualified. If the Pennsylvania law existed in every state, the Democratic Party would not be on the Utah ballot, and the Republican Party would not be in the ballot in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or the District of Columbia. Also the story does not mention the problem that some counties refuse to tally write-in votes.

On March 12, a U.S. District Court in Oklahoma held a hearing in Libertarian Party of Oklahoma v Ziriax to determine whether an injunction should be granted to put the Libertarian Party on the ballot, or to extend the deadline, or to lower the number of signatures. At the end of the hearing, Judge Timothy DeGiusti asked each side to submit a five-page brief by the end of March 13. Here is the Libertarian Party brief. UPDATE: here is the state’s brief.

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.