A Maryland state circuit court in Annapolis will hear Libertarian Party & Green Party v Maryland State Board of Elections on Tuesday, June 21, at 1:30 p.m. This is the case over whether those two parties’ ballot access petitions for 2012 and 2014 are valid or not. Both parties’ petitions have enough valid signatures, if the law is not interpreted in a hyper-technical way.

For example, the court must determine if a signature is valid if the signer used a middle initial when he or she signed the petition, but did not use that middle initial on the voter registration form (or vice versa). Also, if a voter signed the petition twice, once conforming to the hyper-technical standards and once not conforming, should that voter count at all? The state says that if a signer signed twice, neither signature counts, even if the purpose of the 2nd signature was because the voter and the circulator were aware that the first signature wasn’t good enough.

The state’s highest state court already ruled recently that a signature is valid even if the signature itself is illegible. Illegible signatures combined with the voter’s legible printed name, plus the voter’s address, obviously give enough information to identify a registered voter. The two political parties are hoping the lower court agrees with the general philosophy expressed in the “legibility” decision.