This news story in a daily newspaper in Pennsylvania features the ballot access reform bill recently introduced by Senator Mike Folmer.
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The Pennsylvania petition deadline is August 1. The Green Party of Pennsylvania is hoping that the Reconstruction Party of Philadelphia will have secured enough signatures on the Green petition to give it a chance of succeeding. The state requires 24,666 signatures. Petitions are accepted if they have enough signatures on their face, unless somone challenges. The Libertarian and Constitution Parties are also turning in their petitions on August 1, and Ralph Nader is submitting his on the same day, at 11 a.m. Nader has already released a press release saying he will be turning in 53,000 signatures. The Libertarians expect to submit 47,000.
On July 30, a second challenge was made to Illinois ballot access law for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House. Both the earlier federal lawsuit (Stevo v Keith) and the newer state court case argue that Illinois can have no state interest in requiring approximately 10,000 signatures for U.S. House candidates this year, since Illinois requires exactly 5,000 signatures for that office, for both minor parties and independents, in years following redistricting. The new state case is Druck v Illinois State Bd. of Elections, Cook Co., 2008-COEL-8.
On July 31, an independent candidate for U.S. House filed a lawsuit challenging the number of signatures for that office, in certain districts. Alabama is the only state which requires an independent candidate for U.S. House to obtain more signatures than are required for an independent candidate for president. Alabama requires exactly 5,000 signatures for independent presidential candidates, but this year in the 6th district requires 6,155.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1979 that states may not require more signatures for an independent candidate for an office in just part of the state, than are required for a statewide office. That case was called Illinois State Board of Elections v Socialist Workers Party.
The new Alabama case is called Shugart v Chapman. It doesn’t have a case number yet, since it is being filed by postal mail in U.S. District Court. UPDATE: the case number is 2:08-cv-1382, northern district.
On July 30, CNN-Opinion Research released a new 4-way presidential poll. The results: Obama 46%, McCain 42%, Nader 6%, Barr 3%, other and undecided 3%. See here for more details.