A Vermont Superior Court will hear oral argument in Trudell v Markowitz, 612-8-10-WN, on February 3. This is the case that challenges Vermont’s new early petition deadline for independent candidate petitions. Last year the legislature moved the deadline from September to June. At the same time, the legislature moved the primary from September to August.

The plaintiff, Paul Trudell, had tried to be an independent candidate last year for U.S. House of Representatives. He would have appeared on the ballot if the deadline had not been moved. Courts in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, have all ruled that independent candidate petitions (for office other than president) cannot be earlier than primary day, or the day before the primary. There are no contrary precedents, except that in Washington state the 9th circuit refused to strike down a deadline that was a month earlier than the primary, but that decision was based on the fact that no plaintiff-candidate in that lawsuit had been injured by the early deadline.