Alaska held its primaries on August 24.  To almost everyone’s great surprise, little-known Republican candidate Joe Miller appears to have defeated Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski.  However, many ballots remain to be counted.

This column in the Anchorage Daily News, by Sean Cockerham, suggests that new candidates may now enter the race.  The petition deadline for independent candidates was August 24, so no one can enter the race as an independent.  But, Cockerham notes, qualified parties who already had a nominee are free to substitute a new nominee, if the original nominee withdraws.  He discusses the possibility that either the Democratic Party, or the Libertarian Party, might name a new nominee if the original nominee withdraws.  No other parties have a nominee for U.S. Senate.  The Alaskan Independence Party did not enter that race.  UPDATE:  this article quotes Scott Kohlhaas, a leader of the Alaska Libertarian Party, hinting that the Libertarian Party likes some issue stances of Lisa Murkowski.

The late summer and fall of even-numbered years is the prime time for activists to find legislators who will introduce ballot access improvement bills in 2011.  Legislatures are far more active in odd years than in even years.  And candidates for the legislature are generally easier to reach during campaign season, because they are (in almost all states) not in session, in their home areas, and often campaigning for re-election.

Ballot access activists are working in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.  Such activity is also urgently needed in Alabama, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

Deadlines for introducing bills in 2011 can be as early as December 2010.

Atlanta Progressive News will hold one of its Town Hall meetings on Tuesday, September 21, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.  This meeting is on Georgia ballot access.  See here for the event’s facebook page.  The location is 728 Spring Street, at the Spring/4th Center.

Confirmed speakers include Faye Coffield, lead plaintiff in the federal ballot access lawsuit; Brad Ploeger, Libertarian nominee for State House whose petition was rejected this year; Allan Williamson, independent candidate for State House whose petition was rejected this year; David Chastain, Libertarian Party nominee for Secretary of State; and Garland Favorito of the Constitution Party.  Invited, and possibly attending, are Mary Norwood, independent candidate for Fulton County office whose petition was rejected this year; Ray Boyd, whose independent gubernatorial petition drive did not succeed this year; Georgia Sinkfield, Democratic nominee for Secretary of State; and others.  Georgia’s incumbent Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, who is running for re-election as the Republican nominee, will not attend but has promised to issue a statement.

Even sophisticated Georgians generally are not informed about Georgia’s ballot access laws.  There is confusion because the statewide Libertarian nominees are always on the ballot, without the need for a petition.  Virtually no one in Georgia understands that even Libertarians, recognized by the state for statewide office, cannot get on the ballot for U.S. House, or for legislature, or for partisan county office, unless they submit a petition signed by 5% of the registered voters.  Nor do many Georgians realize that every attempt to place an independent or minor party candidate on the ballot for U.S. House, in the last 45 years, has failed, if the 5% petition was in effect.  Special elections do not require any petition, so there have been some minor party and independent candidates on the ballot for U.S. House in special elections.