On May 23, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed HB 794. The bill moves the petition deadline to place a party on the ballot, but the improvement is slight. The deadline moves from March to early April. Also, the bill deletes the requirement that the petition must say that the signers are members. The bill does not lower the number of signatures for a new party, which will be 40,042 in 2012.

The old law was held unconstitutional last year, mostly because the deadline was so early. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, or strongly implied, on four occasions that petitions that early to place a new party on the ballot are unconstitutional. Courts in fifteen states have struck down petition deadlines (for new parties) earlier than May. There are no contrary reported decisions, except that an April petition deadline was upheld in North Dakota in 1988, but at the time North Dakota permitted partisan labels with the independent procedure and the independent candidate deadline was in September.

It is likely that the same three parties that sued Tennessee will file a new lawsuit. They are the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties.