A U.S. District Court in Ohio will hold a trial in Duncan v Husted, s.d., 2:!3cv-1157, on June 22. This is the case in which an independent candidate challenges a new Ohio law that says independent candidates must complete their petition within one year. The law is discriminatory because it doesn’t tell candidates running in a primary that they must finish up their petitions in any particular period of time. Nor does the law tell a newly-qualifying party that it must complete its petition within one year.

Laws that limit the amount of time for a petition to be completed discriminate in favor of candidates and parties that can afford to hire paid circulators, versus those who can’t. The plaintiff, Richard Duncan, was the only independent presidential candidate who qualified for the Ohio 2012 ballot. He lives in Ohio and he does all his own petitioning. It takes him several years to accumulate 5,000 valid signatures. He believes the new law was passed with the goal of blocking his 2016 independent presidential petition. He had also successfully petitioned as an independent for President in Ohio in 2008.

In 2012, he received 12,502 votes in Ohio for President, more votes than two other presidential candidates who were on the Ohio ballot received. Socialist Party nominee Stewart Alexander only received 2,944 votes in Ohio, and Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, a former member of Congress, only received 8.151.