On September 12, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that West Virginia law does not allow individuals to be independent candidates, if they are registered members of a qualified party. See the two-page order here. Wells v Miller, 16-0779. The Court says it will explain its reasoning later, but that the decision of the lower state court is affirmed. That means that numerous individuals who successfully petitioned to be on the November 2016 ballot for state and county office will now be removed from the ballot. The plaintiff, Erik Wells, was an independent candidate for Kanawha County Clerk, but he is a registered Democrat.
The West Virginia law does not actually say independent candidates must not be members of a qualified party, but apparently the State Supreme Court thinks it is implied.
This is the correct decision. Independent means independent of the establishment and not a scheme to back door the system. The fact that so many people were successful in ballot access using this method, even though overturned, means that I think we will see a rise in true independent candidates here in future elections. This ruling will certainly draw attention given given Wells’ relation to our Secretary of State. An analysis of voter registration data at her website (http://www.sos.wv.gov/elections/history/Pages/Voter_Registration.aspx) shows that there are now over 290,000 “independent” (Other Party & No Party) West Virginia voters which is steadily rising while Republican registration have stagnated and those of Democrats are on the decline.