The Republican National Committee will consider changing its rules for the presidential candidate selection process.  Specifically, the party is mulling over the idea that states that choose delegates to the national convention earlier than April 1 must not use winner-take-all systems.  Also the party wants to work with Democrats, and with state legislatures, to guarantee that no more presidential primaries be held earlier than mid-February.  In 2008 there were January presidential primaries in New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida.  See this story.

Former President Bill Clinton has signed a fund-raising letter for Kendrick Meek, one of the two candidates for the U.S. Senate nomination in the Florida Democratic primary of August 24.  Clinton’s letter says, “I know a little something about three-candidate races…I believe that Kendrick Meek is the best candidate, and that he’s got a real shot at winning, but only if he gets our help now.”  See this article.  The article also gives a rundown of all the recent polls in that race.

June 28 was the deadline for objections to be filed against Illinois petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties,  and for independent candidates.  All of the statewide minor party and independent petitions have been challenged, including the statewide petitions of the Libertarian and Constitution Parties.

The Green Party is not subject to worries about petition challenges, because it is a qualified party and already nominated its candidates in the February 2010 primary.

The challenger against the Libertarian and Constitution slates is Sharon Ann Meroni of Barrington Hills.  She is also the only person who objected to the independent gubernatorial petition of Scott Lee Cohen.  To the extent that Meroni is associated with the Republican Party (which she is), it is puzzling that she also challenged Cohen’s petition, because Cohen is an independent Democrat.  UPDATE:  Meroni explains the basis for her challenges at her web page here.  She is challenging on the basis that they didn’t prove they meet the constitutional qualifications to hold the offices they are running for.  If this is the only challenge to these petitions, the petitions are virtually certain to be upheld.  Thanks to Jeff Trigg for the link.

Just because a challenge is filed does not mean that the challenged petitions are now invalid.  The State Board of Elections must now hold quasi-judicial hearings on the validity of each signature on the various challenged petitions.  The amount of work for the State Board of Elections, handling challenges, may possibly result in a demand that the Illinois ballot access system be reformed.