On September 14, U.S. District Court Judge W. Keith Watkins issued an order in De La Fuente v Merrill, m.d., 2:16cv-755. The state is asked to respond to the lawsuit by September 23. A hearing will be held on October 5 at 9 a.m. in Montgomery.

After the Alabama Secretary of State’s office had checked Rocky De La Fuente’s petition and found it valid, it had listed him on its webpage as a candidate. But then the office told him he cannot appear on the ballot because he had run in the Democratic presidential primary in Alabama that year. The lawsuit argues that (1) the Secretary of State violated due process; (2) the Secretary of State ignored the 1992 precedent in which Lyndon LaRouche was not removed from the ballot as an independent even though he had run in Alabama’s Democratic presidential primary that year; (3) sore loser laws cannot be applied to presidential candidates because the true candidates in November are the candidates for presidential elector; (4) states cannot add to the constitutional qualifications to run for federal office.

Judge Watkins only entered the case on September 14. The case had originally been assigned to Judge Myron Thompson, but then it was transferred to Judge Watkins because Judge Thompson’s schedule did not permit him to act quickly on this case.