Tucson, Arizona, is the only city in Arizona with partisan elections. It elects a Mayor and City Councilmembers on November 6, 2007. The Mayor’s race features only two nominees, Republican Bob Walkup and Green Dave Croteau.

Although the Green Party is not a ballot-qualified party in Arizona, it is ballot-qualified in Pima County and in Tucson. Arizona law lets a party that is not ballot-qualified statewide, still be ballot-qualified in particular counties or cities. Other states with this characteristic are Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

A proposed initiative to provide that each U.S. House district would elect its own presidential elector has again started to circulate in California. However, the backers do not have the funding to put it on the ballot, unless they persuade someone of wealth to fund it. They are trying to persude Congressman Darrell Issa to fund the proposal. Issa is distracted just now because his district is currently experiencing very serious and huge fires.

Back in 2004, Ralph Nader sued Hawaii over its ballot access laws. One part of the suit challenged the arbitrary manner in which Hawaii elections officials validate signatures, but the other part of the case challenged the constitutionality of requiring an independent presidential candidate to get almost five times as many signatures as an entire new political party. The case has been stalled for three years. Recently it was assigned to a new federal judge, Judge J. Michael Seabright. He arranged a conference on the case on October 19, so it is likely to move ahead soon. The case is called Nader v Yoshima, 04-611.