On July 13, Donna Spring died at the age of 55. She had been one of the Green Party’s longest-serving public officials. She was in her fourth four-year term on the Berkeley, California city council. She had been working for Instant-Runoff Voting in Berkeley since 1993. The voters of Berkeley approved the use of IRV several years ago, but it still hasn’t been implemented. Spring lived with rheumatoid arthritis and generally used a wheelchair. In the last two years she had participated by speakerphone at city council meetings, since it was difficult for her to obtain access to the city council chambers. She died of pneumonia, only three weeks since she last participated in a city council meeting. Thanks to Rob Richie for this news.

On July 17, Bob Barr and his candidates for presidential elector in Oklahoma filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma procedures for qualifying an independent presidential candidate. The procedures are so difficult that they have not been used since 1992. UPDATE: the case number is civ-08-730-R.

A Zogby/Reuters Poll released July 16 shows these results when voters are presented with a list of 4 presidential candidates: Obama 46%, McCain 36%, Barr 3%, Nader 3%, other or undecided 12%. See here for more details. When the voter is only presented with the names of Obama and McCain, 3% still volunteer someone else. Thanks to ThirdPartyWatch for this news.

If Bob Barr polled 3% in each state, the Libertarian Party would become a qualified party, for the first time ever, in Arkansas, Connecticut (presidential status only), Iowa, and Kentucky. At that point, the only states in which the party would never have been a qualified party would be Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia. Minnesota requires a vote of 5% for any statewide race; New Jersey requires 10% for all votes cast for lower house of the legislature; New York requires 50,000 votes for Governor; Pennsylvania requires registration of 15%; Rhode Island requires 5% for president or governor; Virginia requires 10% for any statewide race. The Tennessee requirement is currently under attack in federal court.

The Libertarian Party has also never been a qualified party in the District of Columbia, but it has some reason to believe it can attain that status this year, since it has a strong candidate for Delegate to the U.S House. He needs 7,500 votes to give the party “qualified” status.

Finally, although the Libertarian Party has been a qualified party for statewide office in both Illinois and Georgia, it has never been a ballot-qualified party in those two states for district and county office. Those two states, along with Connecticut, are the only states in which it is possible for a party to be “qualified” for all statewide office, but not all office.