Last week, it was reported that no one would be on the ballot in either major party primary in Georgia’s state house district 82. This is because no one had filed in the Republican primary, and filing has closed; and no Democrat would be on because the incumbent Democrat had been the only person who had filed, and then after filing had closed, he withdrew.

But now the Secretary of State has ruled that Democrats will have a special primary on July 20 to choose a replacement. Filing is now open to run in that special primary. Republicans will not be allowed to have a special primary, however. See this story. Thanks to Jason Pye for the link. The regularly-scheduled primary in Georgia this year is also on July 20.

On May 11, the Colorado Senate passed HB 1271 on third reading. Before passing it, the Senate re-amended it so that it matches the version passed earlier by the House. The only difference in the two versions had been the effective date. The final version doesn’t take effect until 2011. See this story.

HB 1271 will now become law, if Governor Bill Ritter signs it. Ritter is a Democrat and the bill had substantial support among Democrats in the legislature, so he is likely to sign it.

Colorado is the only state in which the legislature has passed a bill this year that eases ballot access for minor party and independent candidates. HB 1271 eases the prior disaffiliation period for independent candidates. Assuming it becomes law, California will be the only state in the nation in which independent candidates can’t get on the ballot if they had been registered as a member of a qualified party at some point in the odd year before the election year. And even California doesn’t apply the restriction to presidential independents.

Last year, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania changed his registration from Republican to Democratic, after he and others in Pennsylvania realized that he would probably lose the May 18, 2010 Republican primary.

Now, however, he is trailing in the Democratic primary. Slate has this interesting article by Steve Kornacki, asking whether Specter would have been wise to change his registration last year from Republican to independent, and to have run for re-election this year as an independent.

Ironically, in 1997, Specter tried to make Pennsylvania ballot access far more difficult. He used his influence with Pennsylvania Republican legislators (who were in the majority in both houses) to get a bill through the legislature, quadrupling the number of signatures for independent and minor party candidates. The bill passed, but fortunately Governor Tom Ridge vetoed it.

The reason Specter tried to make ballot access for independents and minor parties more difficult back in 1997 is because he was up for re-election as a Republican in 1998, and he hoped to prevent the Constitution Party from getting a candidate on the ballot against him. Specter has always been pro-choice, and he had seen how well the Constitution Party had polled in the 1994 Pennsylvania governor’s race, when the Republican Party nominee for Governor had also been pro-choice. As things turned out, Specter was overwhelmingly re-elected as a Republican in 1998. Although the Constitution Party did get on the ballot against him, it only polled 68,377 votes.