Many state legislatures have rigid deadlines for introducing bills. Those deadlines were in December 2008 in Indiana, Iowa, and Oklahoma. A previous post had said that the Indiana deadline was in mid-January, but actually it was on December 15. Therefore, it is already too late to introduce a ballot access improvement bill in Indiana in 2009. However, Indiana has one-year legislative sessions, so it will be possible to seek sponsors for bills to be introduced in late 2009 for the 2010 session. State Senator Sue Landske (R-Lake County) has already shown some interest in improving Indiana ballot access.

States with January 2009 deadlines for bills to be introduced this year are: Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wyoming.

States with February 2009 deadlines are: Arizona, California, Kentucky, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont.

Illinois holds a special election to fill the vacant 5th U.S. House seat on April 7. The Board says any independent candidate, or any nominee of an unqualified party, must submit 12,586 valid signatures no later than January 27.

The seat is empty because the person elected in November 2008, Rahm Emanuel, has resigned his seat to become Chief of Staff to President-Elect Barack Obama.

The state is requiring these signatures to be collected in just 21 days. Federal courts in Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Wyoming have ruled that when the normal petitioning period is sharply curtailed, states must reduce the required number of signatures. As far as is known, no one has ever sued over this point in Illinois.

On January 5, the Minnesota Secretary of State posted new totals for Al Franken and Norm Coleman for U.S. Senate. No new totals were calculated for the other candidates.

Compared to the original tally, Al Franken gained 1,056 votes, and Norm Coleman gained 616. These new votes were sufficient to reverse the outcome. Whereas Norm Coleman had won by 215 votes in the original tally, the new numbers have Al Franken winning by 225 votes. Coleman does not accept the results and is contesting the recount results.