In 2007, the Montana legislature moved the petition deadline for independent candidates (for office other than president) from June to March. In April 2008 the ACLU national Voting Rights office filed a lawsuit against the new deadline, on behalf of Steve Kelly, who wanted to run as an independent this year for U.S. Senate.

That lawsuit didn’t get mentioned in the major news media when it was filed. But now that the Republican U.S. Senate primary has nominated Bob Kelleher, who really doesn’t seem to be a bona fide Republican, the press is interested in the lawsuit. Here is one story about it.

On June 18, the California State Senate Elections Committee passed AB583. This bill institutes public funding for the Secretary of State’s election in 2014. It awards $1,500,000 to Democratic and Republican candidates for that office who receive $5 contributions from 7,500 people. Every other candidate for that office would need to receive $5 contributions from 15,000 people to qualify for public funding. Richard Winger testified against that aspect of the bill on behalf of the Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE). The bill passed anyway, 3-2. Now it goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Two petitions are circulating for statewide ballot status in Illinois, the Libertarian Party petition, and the independent Ralph Nader petition. The deadline is Monday, June 23. Each of the two petitions is likely to have 50,000 signatures, to meet a legal requirement of 25,000 signatures.

In 2006, the Illinois Green Party statewide petition had approximately 38,000 signatures, and it was sufficient to meet the 25,000-signature requirement, even against a challenge by the Democratic Party.

The Green Party is a qualified party in Illinois, and does not need to do a petition this year to place its nominees on the November ballot. It has that status for 2010 as well.