The Ohio Libertarian Party media director is about to mail a letter to all 132 state legislators, asking each one to help reform Ohio’s ballot access laws. The letter points out that the Ohio procedure to get a new party on the ballot was declared unconstitutional in September 2006, and that no one has even introduced a bill to replace the old law. The letter notes that Illinois and Arkansas also had their ballot access laws declared unconstitutional in 2006, but both of those states passed better laws in 2007.

Similar activism ought to be taking place in many states besides Ohio. Especially in need of better laws for new and minor parties are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

On Saturday, November 17, Louisiana held run-off elections for all state offices in which no one had polled 50% in the first round in October. In State House district 55, independent Jerome “Dee” Richard defeated his Democratic opponent, Michael Matherne, by 58.6% to 41.4%. The 55th district is in Lafourche Parish.

Louisiana now has two independents in the legislature. The other one, Joel Robideaux, had been elected outright in October.

There are 153 instances at which someone has been elected to state office during the period 1980 through 2007, even though he or she was not the Democratic or Republican nominee (this list excludes non-partisan elections). The December 1, 2007 printed Ballot Access News will include the entire list.

On Saturday, it was revealed that Democrat Brian Scavo had defeated Green Party nominee David Lussier by 23 votes. They were the only two candidates running for Albany County (New York) legislature, 7th district. Earlier reports had Lussier winning by five votes. But now that the absentee paper ballots have been counted, the outcome has been reversed. The outcome still isn’t final or official.