The Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE) held its annual board meeting in New York city on February 1. Minutes of the meeting will be posted at www.cofoe.org in a few weeks. The board voted to pay the costs of appealing Stevo v Keith to the U.S. Supreme Court. Stevo v Keith challenges the number of signatures needed by independent candidates for U.S. House in Illinois, in election years that end in 4, 6, 8 or 0. Illinois law provides that in election years that end in 2, an independent needs exactly 5,000 signatures. But in other election years, the candidate needs approximately 11,000 signatures. This law has existed for 30 years, and in all those 30 years, no independent for U.S. House qualified in Illinois, whether it was a year that required only 5,000 signatures, or a year which required 11,000. Therefore, Stevo argues there can’t possibly be any real state interest in ever requiring more than 5,000 signatures. He had submitted 7,500 signatures in 2008 and argued that should be enough, but the 7th circuit had upheld the law.

Minnesota Senator John Marty (DFL-Roseville) has introduced SF 395, to provide that Minnesota would use Instant-Runoff Voting for all its federal and state elections.

Some Independent Party legislative candidates, and some Working Families Party legislative candidates, received public funding in 2008. This article in the AmericanRepublican newspaper details how the candidates used their public funds.