On January 23, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to re-hear the Carl Romanelli lawsuit, concerning whether the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006 is responsible for paying the court costs of the people who challenged his petition. However, since the Supreme Court’s order last year in his case had sent the case back to the lower court to re-do it, that legal fight is not over. It will probably take a year or more for the lower court to re-do its order. When that happens, the amount he owes may perhaps be substantially lower.

Arizona election law requires parties to have registration of two-thirds of 1%, on November 1 of odd years, in order to remain on the ballot for the coming even year.

The Secretary of State of Arizona has still not posted the November 1, 2007 registration tally, and she says she won’t do it until February. Nor will she release it over the telephone. However, she has already posted the January 1, 2008 data, even though that data has no legal significance (although, of course, it is interesting).

The Libertarian Party (the only ballot-qualified party in Arizona other than the two major parties) seems to have enough registrations, based on information gathered painstakingly from the 15 county elections offices. The party’s percentage appears to be .689%, and the party’s total appears to be 18,544.

The Constitution Party of Arizona has tentatively decided not to petition for ballot status, because of a lack of funds to hire petition circulators. New parties need 20,449 valid signatures on a petition by March 6. That deadline is probably unconstitutional, should anyone challenge it. The Arizona primary (for office other than president) is in late August, so that deadline seems excessively and needlessly early.

Thanks to Michael Kielsky for obtaining the hard-to-get registration data for Maricopa County, which has over half the state population. Also thanks to the other county elections officials, who took the trouble to find this data, even though they are very busy preparing for the presidential primary on February 5.

The Washington House (Committee on State Government) holds a hearing on January 23, 1:30 p.m., on HB 1534. This bill improves ballot access for minor parties. Current Washington state law requires separate candidate petitions for each nominee of an unqualified party. This bill would set up a procedure whereby a party qualifies itself with a petition. If it gets enough valid signatures, then it is entitled to nominate by convention, with no more petitioning.

The bill does not change number of signatures for statewide office; it would remain 1,000. For a party that only wants to nominate a candidate for U.S. House, the bill improves the number. Current law requires 1,000 signatures for U.S. House; the bill lowers that to 250.

Minor party activists only had two days notice for this hearing, and there is some fear that only Ruth Bennett of the Libertarian Party will be able to attend and testify in favor of the bill.