Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, elects its District Attorney on November 2, 2010.  Two candidates are on the ballot, independent Robert Spence and Democratic incumbent Tommy Smith.  According to this story in the Tuscaloosa News, Democrats may challenge Spence.

Elections officials say Spence has enough valid signatures.  Alabama election law, sec. 17-7-1(c), says no one may qualify as an independent candidate  “who was a candidate in the primary election of that year.”  Democrats may challenge Spence because he filed to run in this year’s Democratic primary, even though he withdrew from the primary and his name did not appear on primary ballots, except on a few absentee ballots that had been printed before he had withdrawn.

HR 1826, the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to provide for public funding for congressional candidates, now has 156 co-sponsors.  It gained three co-sponsors during the last two weeks.  No other election law bill pending in Congress has gained any co-sponsors during June.

On June 25, a Colorado State District Court put Jennifer Coken on the Democratic primary ballot for State House, 4th district.  Her petition had been invalidated because the Secretary of State had ruled that she didn’t have enough valid signatures.  But, the Judge restored signatures of voters who had signed Coken’s petition, and had also signed a petition for one of her opponents.

The Secretary of State had credited the signatures of voters who had signed both petitions to Coken’s opponent, because the opponent had submitted her petitions first.  But, the judge said there is no statutory authority to do that.

The judge also restored some signatures that had been invalidated because her circulator had moved during the petitioning process.  See this story.  The Secretary of State plans to appeal to the State Supreme Court.