On October 24, Michael Osborne, an independent candidate for the Virginia legislature next month, filed a lawsuit in state court against the state’s discriminatory laws on checking signatures.

In Virginia, all candidates running in a primary must petition to get on the primary ballot, but the petitions are not checked for validity. Independent candidate petitions, and the petitions of nominees of unqualified parties, on the other hand, are checked for validity. Osborne’s lawsuit argues that the Virginia Constitution bars such unequal treatment. See this story.