Indiana has one of the most severe laws for candidates to get on a presidential primary ballot. The law requires 500 signatures from each of the state’s nine U.S. House districts. In 2008, the only Democrats who appeared on the Indiana Democratic presidential primary ballot were Hillary Clinton (who won the state’s primary) and Barack Obama.

The October 8 issues of both the South Bend Tribune and the Howey Politics Weekly are reporting that it appears the Second District petitions for both Clinton and Obama contained many forgeries, so many that it is likely the statewide petitions would have failed if the problems had been brought to light at the time. Although each candidate probably still had the needed 4,500 signatures statewide, the distribution requirement would likely not have been met. Here is the South Bend Tribune story.

Four Republicans qualified for the Indiana presidential primary in 2008: John McCain, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Mike Huckabee.

Indiana elections officials do not actually check the names on presidential primary petitions. They merely look at the petitions to see if they appear proper on their face. Thanks to Ryan Nees for this story.

On October 7, Ontario held an election for its provincial legislative body. See this story for the results. The Liberal Party won 53 seats, the Conservative Party 37 seats, and the New Democratic Party 17 seats.

Previously, the Liberals had held 70 seats, Conservatives 25, New Democrats 10, and 2 vacancies. Thanks to Sam Harley for the link.

On October 7, a Colorado lower state court refused the Secretary of State’s request for an injunction to stop Denver election officials from mailing mail ballots to inactive voters. See this story. An “inactive voter” is one who is on the registration rolls, but didn’t vote in 2010 and didn’t respond to a postcard asking if the voter wants a mail ballot.