Rocky De La Fuente and Jill Stein are currently litigating against Oklahoma in the Tenth Circuit, over the law that required them to collect over 40,000 signatures in 2016. The case is De La Fuente v Ziriax. On March 23, the Tenth Circuit issued permission for the state to postpone filing its response brief until the legislative session is over. The Tenth Circuit is aware that the State Senate already passed SB 145, which eliminates mandatory petitions for independent presidential candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, if they pay a large filing fee. If the bill passes the House and is signed by the Governor, that will moot the case.
How large will the ‘large filing fee’ be as that could be as equally, if not more, onerous than collecting signatures.
$17,500. An alternative (in the bill) is to collect 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. We can’t know what that number would be in 2020, because we haven’t had the 2018 gubernatorial election yet. But for 2016, it would have been 24,745 signatures.
In 2016, the new party petition was 24,745 signatures, due March 1. The Libertarian Party did that petition but it cost about $100,000.
The filing fee the Senate Bill would put into law is ridiculous. There is no similar filing fee for the Presidential candidates of recognized parties. The closest is a $2,500 fee to get on a party’s presidential primary ballot. Yet, one does not need to be in the Oklahoma Party Primary to appear on the ballot under that party.
At most, the cost to for a candidate of a major party to get on the ballot is $2,500 if that candidate was in the Primary.
The bill I had advocated for had a filing fee of $5,000.