On February 19, the state elections office in Utah notified the Libertarian Party that its petition had enough valid signatures, so the party is back on the ballot.
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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died at his home in The Netherlands on February 6, 2008. He was age 91. In 1992 he told his followers all over the world to found Natural Law Parties in their own nation.
The U.S. Natural Law Party was founded in April 1992, and managed to place its presidential candidate, John Hagelin, on the ballot in 28 states that year, an outstanding achievement for a party organized that late. The party disbanded in 2004, although its Michigan unit is still ballot-qualified. During the party’s lifetime, it won two constitutional ballot access cases. It won a case against the Kansas law that said a party could have only one word in its name. It also won against the South Carolina law that said a new party had to hold conventions in the spring of the election year.
Here is a link to CNN election returns for the Wisconsin presidential primaries.
On February 18, the Washington State Senate passed SB 5628, the National Popular Vote Plan for presidential elections. The vote was 30-18. All the Republicans voted “No” (except for one who was absent), and two Democrats also voted “No” (Senators Hargrove and Spanel). All other Democrats voted “Yes.”
The Washington State House has a large Democratic majority, and the Governor is a Democrat, so this bill will probably be signed into law soon.
For the first time ever, Iowa is keeping track of how many people register as members of unqualified parties. This is because the Iowa Libertarian and Green Parties won a lawsuit on this subject last year. Those two parties are the only parties that then applied to be on the Voter Registration form. Forms listing those two parties have only been in existence for a month.
The Iowa Secretary of State says there are now 58 registered Libertarians and 34 registered Greens.