On May 10, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed SB 3700, which moves the petition deadline for newly-qualifying parties from April to August. It also gives newly-qualifying parties the choice of whether to nominate by convention or primary (if they want a primary, of course they must file before the primary). This bill only passed because minor parties won the 2010 lawsuit and also the 2012 lawsuit, against the early deadline.
This is an example of the kind of reform that can occur, when judges strike down restrictive ballot access laws. The new Tennessee law will not injure election administration to the slightest degree. Although the state is appealing, the only remaining important issues on appeal are: (1) whether the state must give all parties an equal chance to appear first on the ballot; and (2) whether the Constitution and Green Parties should remain on the 2012 ballot.
What century before SCOTUS detects the *equal* in 14th Amdt, Sec. 1 — as applied to ballot access ???
ONE equal deadline.
Equal nominating petitions.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Same amount of signatures as before?
Yes. That may give rise to a new lawsuit. The state can’t claim it is worried about crowded ballots when it lets independent candidates for president on with 275 signatures, and independent candidates for other office on for only 25 signatures.
The signature requirement for qualifying a party of the Tennessee ballot is still around 40,000 valid signatures which is still way too high. The number needs to be cut down to something more reasonable, like 10,000 signatures or less.
Tennessee should just switch to Top 2. They already have low petition requirements for independent candidates, so it is just a matter of letting them add a label to the ballot, such as is done in Washington.
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