On August 31, Citizen Outreach, a 501(c)(4) organization in Nevada that espouses conservative views,  filed a lawsuit in state court in Nevada, arguing that the Secretary of State’s interpretation of the ballot access laws for new parties is incorrect, and that the actual requirements are far more difficult.  The motivation for the lawsuit is to remove Jon Ashjian, the Tea Party nominee for U.S. Senate, from the November 2010 ballot.  However, the lawsuit does not ask the Secretary of State to remove the Green Party nominee for Governor, David Scott Curtis, from that same ballot, and he got on the ballot the same way Ashjian did.

The lawsuit is Burdish v Miller, 10-oc-399, in Carson City.

Ever since 1999, Nevada has given newly-qualifying parties a choice of how to get on the ballot.  They can either file a petition of 250 signatures for each of their statewide nominees in March, or they can file a petition signed by 1% of the last statewide vote (which now amounts to 9,083 signatures) in June.  Thanks to Glenn Brown for this news.

The reason Nevada has two methods is that the state much prefers minor party and independent candidates to file early in the year.  However, in 1986, the state’s April petition deadline for new parties was declared unconstitutional, in Libertarian Party of Nevada v Swackhamer.  Also in 1992, the state’s June petition deadline for independent presidential candidates was declared unconstitutional, in Fulani v Lau.  So Nevada legislators came up with the creative idea of having a very easy petition, with an early deadline; and the standard difficult petition, due later.  They knew that virtually all minor parties would choose to use the easy petition with an early deadline, even though they had the choice to file later, but with many more signatures.

The lawsuit filed on August 31, 2010, misunderstands the Nevada law and says both petitions are required.  Obviously, if that interpretation were upheld, that would have the effect of drastically changing Nevada ballot access laws for the worse.  If the lawsuit’s theory of the law were correct, then Nevada would again have the characteristic of having a mandatory early deadline, which would be unconstitutional.