Forrest Claypool has this commentary in the Huffington Post.  He submitted 90,000 signatures to be on the ballot for Cook County Assessor as an independent.  No one challenged his petition.  He says that he is the first independent candidate on the ballot for that office since the office was made elective, 78 years ago.

He needed 25,000 signatures.  Illinois law requires district and county independent candidates to submit petitions of 5% of the last vote cast, or 25,000, whichever is less.  That law has existed since 1931, although the 25,000-signature cap has only existed since 1980.  Before 1931, the independent petition for district and county office was 2% of the last vote.

It is probably safe to say that more signatures have been collected for independent candidates in Illinois this year, and also in Georgia this year, than at any time in history.

on July 2, a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Michigan against the $500 cap on individual contributions to candidates for State House of Representatives.  See this story.  Campaign contributions are constitutional in general, but a few years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Vermont’s cap on contributions because it was only $200.

On July 1, the New Mexico Green Party filed a second ballot access lawsuit to get its U.S. House candidate on the November 2010 ballot.  One case is already pending in U.S. District Court.  The new lawsuit is in state court.  See this story.

New Mexico is the only state that requires the nominee (not someone seeking the party nomination, but the nominee) of a qualified party to submit his or her own petition.  Alan Woodruff is the nominee of the Green Party, and he complied with that law.  He submitted approximately 4,000 signatures by the deadline on his nominee petition.  But the signatures were rejected because the Secretary of State does not believe the Green Party is ballot-qualified.  The Green Party meets the 5% vote test for a party to be entitled to its own primary, and it meets the one-third of 1% registration membership test.  But it doesn’t meet yet another test, that it have polled at least one-half of 1% for President at the last presidential election.  The new lawsuit in state court says that the state was supposed to have notified the Green Party after the November 2008 election that it had been disqualified, but it did not do so.

The newspaper story quotes Don Trujillo, head of the Elections Bureau, as saying that the only qualified parties in New Mexico are the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties.  This is incorrect.  Employees of the state election bureau already stated in writing last year that the Independent Party, and the Constitution Party, are also both ballot-qualified.  The Independent Party is ballot-qualified because it polled more than one-half of 1% for President in 2008 (that presidential candidate was Ralph Nader).  The Constitution Party is ballot-qualified because it submitted a successful party petition in 2008, and parties that submit such a petition retain qualified status for two elections.  However, the Independent Party and the Constitution Party have no nominees this year.  The only Libertarian Party nominees this year are three candidates for the state legislature.  These parties would have liked to run nominees (or more nominees) this year, but they were stymied by the requirement that they submit hefty petitions for each of their nominees.