On May 29, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed SB 8, the bill that moves the primary for all office in 2016 from late May to early March, and which moves the petition deadline for new parties to September 2015 and the non-presidential independent deadline to November 2015. The bill also forces new parties to have chosen all their 2016 nominees no later than November 2015. It is possible the Libertarian Party will sue over the deadline for it to have chosen all its nominees.
There has never before been any state that forced new parties to nominate all their nominees for a November even-numbered election an entire year before the election. New parties in Arkansas nominate by convention.
The main reason that they did this is to prevent the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, as well as any other minor party that may try to get on the ballot in Arkansas, from being able to target races where there is only one major party candidate in the race. Arkansas, like a lot of other states, has a lot of races where there is only one candidate on the ballot (a Democrat or a Republican). If a minor party knows in advance which races are only going to have one major party candidate in them, they can be sure to field candidates in those races. Making the deadline earlier will mean more races where there is only one candidate on the ballot.
I hope somebody’s trying to undo this.
It would take a state wide referendum petition (which is difficult to qualify for the ballot) or a law suit to over turn this. I did hear that the Libertarian Party and/or the Green Party may file a law suit over this.