North Carolina and Vermont require independent presidential petitions to be submitted by June 14. These two states have the earliest such deadlines in the nation. Lawsuits are pending in both states, and also a bill is pending in the North Carolina legislature to ease ballot access.

Vermont requires 1,000 signatures. The Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Americans Elect are already qualified parties in Vermont, so they did not need to petition. Groups submitting signatures by the deadline include the Green Party, the Constitution Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation Party, and the Justice Party. Vermont permits candidates who use the independent candidate procedure to choose a party label that appears on the November ballot. Vermont also has two other qualified parties that are not affiliated with any national party, the Progressive Party and the Liberty Union Party. The Progressive Party is not expected to have a presidential candidate. Liberty Union will nominate someone for President; no date has been set for the party’s presidential convention, but Stewart Alexander of the Socialist Party and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party each have some chance to get the Liberty Union nomination.

Vermont requires petitioning groups to transport petitions collected from voters in each town to that town’s town clerk. Then, the petitioning groups must collect the verified signatures and take them to the Secretary of State. The Justice Party was unable to persuade all the town clerks to verify their petitions in time, so the Justice Party submitted all its signatures to the Secretary of State, including some not yet verified by the town clerks. The Justice Party will ask that the Secretary of State apply leniency. This is the first presidential election in which Vermont’s deadline has been so early; in past presidential elections it was in September, and, before that, in October.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit against Vermont’s June petition deadline is pending in the State Supreme Court. The original schedule required all briefs to be submitted by May 22, but the state asked for, and obtained, two extensions of time to file a brief. It is not clear if the Vermont Supreme Court will hear the case before the election. The case is called Trudell v Markowitz, 2011-311. Here is the state’s brief.

In North Carolina, no independent presidential petitions were submitted. Parties that are already ballot-qualified in North Carolina are Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Americans Elect.