On July 24, Matt Erard asked the Sixth Circuit to put him and four other Socialist Party nominees on the Michigan ballot this year. The basis for the case, Erard v Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, 14-1873, is: (1) Michigan’s law discriminates against new parties, relative to old minor parties, because the number of signatures is approximately twice the number of votes for an old party to remain on; (2) Michigan barred out-of-state circulators during most of the petitioning period for this year’s election and only recently repealed the law, too late to do much good; (3) language on the petition which discourages voters from signing; (4) the six-month limit on petitioning.
An additional major ground for relief raised in the current motion is that Michigan’s legislature retrospectively reduced the time-length for petitioning to less than three and a half months for the 2014 General Election by having changed the wording required for display on each party-petition sheet, through the same recent amendment that modified the statute’s provisions governing the eligibility of petition-circulators. Consequently, since any petition sheet lacking the newly mandated language has been rendered invalid, the legislature effectively reduced the petitioning time for this year’s election to only the remaining period between the April-enacted amendment’s enactment and the July filing deadline.
1. Separate is NOT equal. Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954
2. Every election is NEW.
3. Thus – equal ballot access tests for ALL candidates for the same office in the same area.
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NO primaries are needed.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
What office is Mr. Erard running for?
Apparently U.S.A. Representative.