Earlier this year, the Vermont legislature moved the independent candidate petition deadline from September to June.  On August 25, an independent candidate for the U.S. House, Jerry Trudell, filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that the new deadline is unconstitutional.  He had submitted his petition a few days before the primary, but the state had refused to accept it, because it was too late.  Vermont held its primary this year on August 24.

On September 15, the state filed its brief in Trudell’s lawsuit, defending the law and asking that the lawsuit be dismissed.  The case is Trudell v Markowitz, Washington County Superior Court, 612-8-10-WN-cv.

Courts have struck down independent candidate petition deadlines (for office other than President), if the deadline was earlier than the primary, in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  The Arkansas decision was summarily affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Also, independent presidential candidates won deadline lawsuits against petition deadlines in Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina, and the state legislatures in those states interpreted those decisions to mean that the old deadline was unconstitutional for all independent candidates, not just presidential independent candidates, and improved the deadlines for all independent candidates.

There are no court precedents upholding a state law that sets the petition deadline for independent candidates before the primary (or the day before the primary), except for a strange 1994 decision from the 9th circuit, concerning Washington state, in which none of the plaintiff-candidates had been harmed by the deadline complained about.  There had been a 1986 precedent from the 7th circuit upholding such an early deadline, but in 2006 the 7th circuit had overruled that old decision.