The Ohio legislature elected in 2006 is still in session, but it expects to adjourn on Thursday, December 18. A few days ago it passed an election law bill, SB 380, which relates to early voting. However, no legislator introduced any bill to replace the old, void ballot access procedures for new and minor political parties.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner testified recently in an Ohio legislative hearing that the state has paid out over $1,000,000 in attorneys fees, in election law cases, this past year. When she took office in January 2007, Ohio was involved in 22 election law lawsuits. Although that has now been whittled down to 10 still outstanding, new cases have been filed this year.

Pennsylvania has 67 counties. In Pennsylvania, all write-ins are legal (there is no procedure for write-in candidates to file in advance) and under the law, all should be tallied. However, once more, 17 counties have failed to include any write-ins from last month’s election, including the populous counties Cumberland, Lehigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, and Philadelphia.

On December 13, California released its official vote tally from the November 2008 election. The most suspense concerned the write-in candidates for president. Ron Paul’s slate of presidential elector candidates received 17,006 write-ins. Chuck Baldwin received 3,145. James Harris for the Socialist Workers Party received 49, and Frank Moore (independent who lives in Berkeley, California) received 36. No one else had filed for write-in status for president.

These figures, and the final figures for the ballot-listed candidates, will be incorporated into the national presidential vote chart (above) on Tuesday evening.