Ballot Access News has just learned that Pennsylvania is still distributing voter registration forms that don’t include any parties except the Democratic and Republican Parties. However, the Libertarian Party polled enough votes in November 2008 to be a recognized party under Pennsylvania law, so the state’s forms are obsolete and violating Pennsylvania’s own law.

Oklahoma behaved in much the same way in 1996 and early 1997, in regard to the Reform Party, which was a qualified party in Oklahoma starting in May 1996 and extending through November 1998. Oklahoma also kept using old registration forms that didn’t list the Reform Party as a choice. The Reform Party sued in December 1996 and the state gave in. That case was Reform Party of Oklahoma v Ward, 96-cv-1834-R.

The lapse is worse in Pennsylvania than it had been in Oklahoma. Oklahoma doesn’t give a political party any particular rights just because it attains a certain level of registrants. But Pennsylvania says a party’s nominees may not be on the November ballot automatically unless it has registration membership of 15%, so leaving the Libertarian Party hurts its ability to meet that goal.

The Daily Herald, a newspaper in Arlington Heights, Illinois, has this article about a Democratic Party-connected challenge to the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. House in the 14th district. The article notes that the Green candidate’s petition is being defended by Free and Equal, the ballot access organization created by Christina Tobin.

The National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws has existed since the 19th century. It proposes model laws to the state legislatures of all states. The Commission has been meeting this year to work on a proposed model law on how to stop presidential electors from voting for presidential or vice-presidential candidates who vote for someone in the electoral college who was not their party’s choice.

The next meeting is in Chicago, December 4 and December 5. It is at the Hotel Sax, 333 N. Dearborn St., and is open to the public. The meetings are Friday, Dec. 4, 9 a.m. thru 5 p.m., and Saturday, 8:30 a.m. thru 3 p.m. The original model bill has been modified since the last meeting. One of the most interesting revisions is to provide that if the presidential nominee of a party dies after November ballots are printed, but before the electoral college meets in mid-December, the electors must vote for their party’s vice-presidential nominee. If they don’t, they are deemed to have resigned and will be replaced by their alternate. The model law provides that states would elect alternate presidential electors to replace presidential electors who vote “disobediently.”