On September 2, the Erie County Board of Elections filed a brief in Meadors v Erie County Board of Elections, w.d., 1:21cv-982. This is the case in which Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown challenged the independent candidate petition deadline. That deadline had always been in August, September, or October, until in 2019 it was moved to May.

The brief mostly relies on procedural issues. It says the voters who filed the lawsuit don’t have standing. It says the lawsuit was filed too late. It says the plaintiffs should have sued the individual members of the County Elections Board, instead of the Board itself. On the merits, it attacks Mayor Brown for being a “sore loser.” However, in Anderson v Celebrezze, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Ohio March petition on behalf of independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson, and Anderson himself was a “sore loser”. Anderson had his name on the Republican presidential primary ballots in twenty states, and didn’t win a single primary.