John Nygren, a member of the Wisconsin Assembly, is a candidate for the State Senate in one of this year’s special elections. However, according to this story, he needed 400 valid signatures to place his name on the Republican primary ballot, and only has 398 valid signatures. One other Republican had filed for the same seat, so Republicans will have a nominee in that race. Also Nygren is free to be a write-in candidate in the primary.

Wisconsin is holding several special elections for State Senate this summer. When a recall petition is filed, and has enough valid signatures, the state simply considers that particular seat vacant, and holds a special election. The person being recalled is free to run in that special election.

On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will not hear Green Party of Connecticut v Lenge, 10-795. This sad action maintains a 20-year record of that Court’s refusal to accept any case brought to it solely by a minor party or an independent candidate (not counting a 1997 case in which a Georgia Libertarian candidate challenged Georgia’s law requiring candidates for state office to take a drug test). Here is a brief Washington Post story about the Court’s refusal.

Starting in 2008, the Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Socialist Parties have been ballot-qualified in Ohio, not because they submitted a petition, or met the vote test, but because the old ballot access law was declared unconstitutional in 2006 and the state hadn’t replaced it.

The legislature is now considering HB 194, which ostensibly cures the constitutional defects. The bill has passed both houses, but in different forms, so it must go back to the House for consideration of changes made by the Senate.

The Secretary of State’s office had previously said the four minor parties would be on the ballot automatically during 2011 (there are some local partisan elections in Ohio in 2011). But the office has not said how those parties will be treated for the 2012 election, if HB 194 is signed into law.

In any event, assuming the minor party provisions of HB 194 are not changed by either house of the legislature, the minor parties are expected to file a new lawsuit, because the new petition deadline is in early February, and all reported decisions on the subject of petition deadlines for minor parties agree that a petition deadline that early is unconstitutional. The bill moves the petition deadline from November of the year before the election to February of the election year. The bill does not reduce the number of signatures (1% of the last vote cast) nor does it improve the vote test for a party to remain on the ballot (5% for the office at the top of the ballot, President or Governor).