On June 11, a U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge upheld Arizona’s independent presidential petition requirement. De La Fuente v State, 2:16cv-2419. An independent presidential candidate needs more signatures in Arizona than a new party does. However, the Magistrate said this is not a violation of equal protection, because the petition deadline for independent presidential candidate petitions is much later than the deadline for new parties.

No independent presidential candidate has qualified in Arizona since 2008, and before that none had qualified since 1992. But the Magistrate said that this is not too important, because minor parties have been on the ballot in Arizona in all elections in this century. The Magistrate did not mention the language of the U.S. Supreme Court that said states must have adequate procedures for both new parties and independent candidates, and one does not substitute for the other.

The Magistrate did not mention any of the recent decisions that have struck down petition requirements approximately similar to Arizona’s. The Arizona independent petition requirement is approximately 1% of the number of registered voters, so it is almost identical to the Georgia requirement that the Eleventh Circuit struck down in 2013, and it is harder than the Michigan requirement that was enjoined last year. But no mention of the Georgia or Michigan decisions was made in the Magistrate’s opinion.