Evan McMullin, the independent presidential candidate who announced on August 8, plans to sue Texas and several other states over their early petition deadlines for independents. See this general strategy summarized at The Weekly Standard. It is likely McMullin will also sue Illinois, Indiana, and North Carolina, states with June deadlines. June petition deadlines have already been declared unconstitutional in Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, South Dakota, and Kansas (in Kansas, the state conceded June was too early, and voluntarily moved the deadline to August; that happened in 1988).
The June deadlines do come across of being intentionally restrictive. But, what would be the “correct” day for a deadline? It seems that all the signature requirements and deadlines are all arbitrary.
This guy’s overall campaign is really pissing me off though. There are at least ten other third parties that have spent the last seven months fighting for ballot access and campaigning. With the exception of the Libertarians and the Greens, none of them have received any press coverage. This guy waltzes in during August and not only does he feel entitled to be on every ballot, but he is receiving a ton of coverage from the MSM.
part of me hopes that this guy’s lawsuits to succeed in getting these states to change their policies. Another part of me hopes he fails and gets his ego deflated.
Yep – the collectivists are really afraid of Trump. They will do just about anything to stop him. Bloomberg TV did the entire 1 hour “With All Due Respect” interview with McMullin, which in my memory is unprecedented.
The system is rigged folks. And not just a little bit. It’s a giant fraud. If it wasn’t for the bread, circuses and EBT cards, there might be some hope. But there isn’t – TPTB are really good at keeping the sheep in line and themselves in power.
There were a bunch of deadlines today: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Ohio. I wonder if he made any of them?
Highly HIGHLY doubt Evan’s lawsuit will succeed, with the way Texas government is.
The filing deadline for president is based loosely on the date of the primary. When the nomination scheme was approved in ‘American Party of Texas v White’ the primary was in May, and the filing deadline for President was the 2nd Monday in July.
The rationale for the petition deadline for other offices is that nominations whether by primary, convention, or petition should be relatively contemporaneous. Because of the primary screenout, collection of signatures cannot begin until after the primaries. With a May primary this would provide about 60 days.
But this logic does not necessarily apply to presidential election, since the primary does not nominate anyone. The nominations are usually made in late summer (this year they were early because of the Olympics), and the only real issue would be time to count the signatures on a petition.
Also, ‘American Party of Texas v White’ made specific note of the deadline relative to the general election in November, indicating that a deadline four months before the general election was reasonable.
ANY lawyers (even for M) and ANY judges with ANY brain cells capable of noting that —
1. Every election is NEW.
2. Separate is NOT equal. Brown v. Bd of Ed 1954.
3. EQUAL ballot access tests for ALL candidates for the same office in the same area.
i.e. ALL of the SCOTUS ballot access cases have been perverted JUNK since 1968 — Williams v. Rhodes.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
“Yep – the collectivists are really afraid of Trump.”
As is everyone who’s not batshit insane.
And then there are those if us that abhor EVERYTHING about trump, including the fact he consumes valuable oxygen
Evan is on the Utah,Minnesota, Colorado,Arkansas,Virginia,Iowa and Louisiana ballot. He will win his cases. SCOTUS Celebrezze case law. He is an excellent candidate.
As of today, 9/16/16, McMullin has won the right in Texas to be a write-in candidate! What great news!
19 mins ago – View on Twitter
Excellent news! We have resolved the misunderstanding with the #Texas Sec of State & I have been certified as a write-in candidate! #txlege
As tweeted by Evan McMullin himself! Must say I am impressed with his campaign so far.