Arizona’s new Secretary of State is Ken Bennett. He is being sworn in on the afternoon of January 26. He had been on the Prescott city council, and then had served 8 years in the State Senate. He left the State Senate in early 2007 because of term limits. He is a Republican. He was appointed because the previous Secretary of State, Jan Brewer, had been sworn in as Governor on January 21. Arizona doesn’t have a Lieutenant Governor, and provides that the Secretary of State becomes Governor when the previous Governor leaves in the middle of the term. Previous Governor Janet Napolitano resigned to serve in the federal cabinet.

Indonesia holds presidential elections, but does not permit independent presidential candidates. According to this news story, a lawsuit is currently pending in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, over whether the ban on independent presidential candidates violates the Constitution.

In the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1974 that the Constitution requires states to provide for ballot access for independent candidates. At the time, 12 states made it impossible for anyone to be an independent presidential candidate, but those bans were all removed after the 1974 decision, which was called Storer v Brown.

On January 22, the Arkansas House voted unanimously to move the presidential primary from February to May. The bill is HB 1021.