Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson failed to get on the Delaware Republican presidential primary ballot. 500 signatures were due on December 10. Thompson turned in 580 signatures, five minutes before the deadline. However, Delaware elections officials check signatures, and determined that only 430 signatures were valid. If he had turned them in earlier, and the state had checked the signatures before the deadline, he would have been free to get more signatures. However, it was too late for a supplemental petition.

On December 21, the Illinois State Board of Elections ruled that Alan Keyes should be on the Republican presidential primary ballot, even though 3,000 signatures are required and Keyes submitted fewer than 200 signatures. The man who challenged Keyes’ petitions recently revoked his own voter registration, so he no longer had the legal ability to bring a challenge.

Constitutional law scholar Vikram Amar as this essay on Findlaw, on the California initiative to let each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector. Backers of the initiative earlier said they cannot get the signatures in time for the initiative to be on the June 2008 primary ballot. Therefore, they hope to place it on the November 2008 ballot. The essay rebuts the idea that the initiative, if passed in November 2008, could go into effect in time for the 2008 electoral college process.