On December 23, a lower state court in Nebraska ruled that the recall petition for Mayor of Omaha has enough valid signatures.  Proponents of the recall needed 26,643 valid signatures.  They collected 37,596, and elections officials ruled that approximately 29,000 were valid.  Opponents of the recall then sued the elections officials, saying the number of valid signatures is actually fewer than the requirement.  However, the judge did not find any invalid signatures among those that elections officials had said are valid.

Even though half the signatures were collected by volunteers, the cost of collecting the other half was $300,000.  Proponents of the recall say that the cost was extraordinarily high because of Nebraska’s laws against using out-of-state circulators, and laws against paying circulators on a per-signature basis.  See this story.

Every state has released its official vote totals for U.S. House, except that Pennsylvania is still working on compiling the write-ins.  The national totals for U.S. House, for each party, appear to be:

Republican 44,540,590; Democratic 38,717,920; Libertarian 1,074,189; Conservative 267,939; Green 252,688; Constitution (including American Independent) 251,741; Independence 205,845; Working Families 202,762; Tea 38,790; Peace & Freedom 30,714; Whig (including Modern Whig) 24,893; Independent Green 21,374; Reform 9,333; Socialist Workers 8,905; Independent Party 6,014; Socialist 3,222; United Citizens 1,013; Blue Enigma 961; Socialist Action 955; independent candidates 833,528.

In 2006, the national vote for U.S. House for the nationally-organized parties was:  Democratic 42,086,214; Republican 35,759,040; Libertarian 650,614; Green 293,606; Constitution 134,215; Reform 53,862; Socialist Workers 17,119; Socialist 385; other parties 493,045; independent candidates 436,279.

Because there are approximately 40% more voters in presidential election years than in mid-term years, the comparision with 2006 seemed more relevant than a comparison with 2008.

The Socialist Workers Party recently announced that one of its members is a write-in candidate for Mayor of Chicago.  He is John Hawkins.  As far as is known, he is the only person running for Chicago Mayor who is not a member of one of the two major parties.  Hawkins is a write-in candidate because he did not submit the needed 12,500 signatures to get on the ballot.  The election is February 22, 2011, and is officially non-partisan.

In 1975, when Chicago Mayoral elections were partisan, the Socialist Workers Party placed its Mayoral candidate on the ballot.  She was Willie Mae Reed, and she was the first minor party candidate to get on the ballot for Mayor of Chicago since before 1931, the year the legislature set the petitioning requirement at 5% of the last vote cast.

In the 2011 election, six candidates for Mayor submitted petitions and were not challenged.  They are Danny K. Davis, Miguel Del Valle, Gery Chico, Patricia Watkins, James T. Meeks, and William Walls.  Another nine candidates submitted petitions and are being challenged.  A few others submitted petitions but then withdrew or have already been declared to have insufficient petitions.  UPDATE:  on December 23, James T. Meeks, a State Senator, withdrew from the race.

For City Treasurer, only two candidates submitted petitions, and both of them are being challenged.  See this article about the two petitions in that race.