Tre Hargett has been Secretary of State of Tennessee since before the 2012 election. In 2012, Gary Johnson was on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Tennessee, and he also qualified as an independent presidential candidate in Tennessee in November 2012.

But this year, he has posted a comment on his web page, saying once a candidate’s name appears on the presidential primary ballot, he cannot qualify as an independent presidential candidate. When he was asked why he had a different policy in 2012, he said he put Johnson’s name on the November ballot “in an abundance of caution.” He said Tennessee was being sued over ballot access in 2012. It is true that in early 2012, a U.S. District Cort struck down the state’s requirements for new parties to get on the ballot, but that lawsuit had absolutely nothing to do with the Libertarian Party, or independent candidates, or the state’s sore loser laws. Furthermore, that same minor party ballot access case is still pending. The Sixth Circuit remanded it back to the U.S. District Court, which could issue an opinion at any time.

Hargett also did not explain why Tennessee let John Anderson on the ballot in November 1980 as an independent, even though Anderson had run in the Republican presidential primary in Tennessee in 1980. This is one more sad example of the arbitrary application of ballot access interpretation in the United States.

There are two reasons why states cannot impose sore loser laws on presidential primaries. One is that Article II of the U.S. Constitution, and federal law, makes it clear that the presidential electors are the true candidates in November. Then, in December, the electors choose the president. That is why the November ballot in Tennessee says, for example, “Electors for Mitt Romney”, “Electors for Barack Obama”, etc.

The other reason is that no one is defeated for a presidential nomination in the presidential primary of a single state. Hargett is a Republican.