Major Timothy F. Johnson, retired, vice-chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and founder and chair of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, has endorsed HB 32, now pending in the North Carolina legislature. The bill cuts the number of signatures for a statewide independent or a newly-qualifying party from 85,379 signatures, to 10,000. The bill has been discussed twice in meetings of the House Election Law & Campaign Finance Committee, and will probably pass out during May. For more about Johnson, see here.

The bill is also supported by the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, and Common Cause of North Carolina.