Buffalo Mayor Files 3,000 Signatures to Qualify as an Independent Candidate

On August 17, Byron Brown, Mayor of Buffalo, New York, filed an independent petition with approximately 3,000 signatures, which is four times the legal requirement. He hopes to be on the November ballot as the nominee of the Buffalo Party. The 2019 legislature moved the independent candidate petition from August to May, so the petition is late, but he plans to file a lawsuit against the new, early deadline. See this story. The reporters who write stories about this subject seem uninformed that early petition deadlines for independent candidates or newly-qualifying parties have been struck down in over half the states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Tennessee. Four times, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down early deadlines (Williams v Rhodes, Anderson v Celebrezze, Lendall v Jernigan, and Salera v Tucker).


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