On March 18, a subcommittee of the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee passed HB 2981, the ballot access improvement bill. The bill is likely to get a hearing in the full Judiciary Committee next week or the week after. The bill moves the non-presidential petition deadline from May to August (so that it matches the presidential petition deadline), and lowers the number of signatures from 2% of the last vote cast, to 1%. West Virginia’s petitions were 1% before 1999, but the 1999 session of the legislature increased it to 2%.