The US Court of Appeals, 6th circuit, will hear Libertarian Party of Ohio v Blackwell on September 14, 2005. The issues are (1) whether a state can require a group to qualify as a party an entire year before the election; (2) whether the state can change the petition format slightly after a party is already circulating the petition, and then reject that petition because the form had been changed while the petition was circulating.
On September 23, the 6th circuit will hear Lawrence v Blackwell, the challenge to the state’s deadline for independent candidates (for office other than president). In 2004 that deadline was March 1. The case was brought by a Socialist Equality Party candidate for congress.
Seems like the question of new forms could be resolved if the SOS would notify parties who picked up the old forms that they could use the ones they have filled out but need to pick up the new ones to complete the job. That would be a lot cheaper than a lawsuit.
Chronicler is quite right, if the SOS had no other motives than legal compliance. But fiddling with the form was simply an administrative ex post facto and bill of attainder with the effect of torpedoing ballot access. It’s comparatively inexpensive for government agencies to provoke lawsuits because they have ample legal staff provided by the taxpayers.