On August 26, U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin issued an order in Cowen v Raffensperger, n.d., 1:17cv-4660. This is the Georgia Libertarian case filed in 2017 against the law on how a minor party or independent candidate gets on the ballot for U.S. House. Part of the case had been technically still alive. Then a few months ago, the Georgia legislature passed a bill making it possible for a minor party candidate for president to be on the ballot even if that presidential candidate has no support whatsoever inside Georgia. The new law says if a minor party presidential candidate is on in at least 20 other states, he or she is automatically on in Georgia.

The plaintiffs in the U.S. House lawsuit wanted to revive the case by citing the new concerning presidential ballot access. The plaintiffs wanted to argue that because Georgia now theoretically lets a minor party presidential candidate on the ballot even though the candidate might have no support in Georgia, that undercuts the state’s defense of the law on U.S. House. Georgia’s defense is that a state has a compelling interest in keeping candidates off the ballot unless they have overwhelming popular support.

But the judge said the U.S. House case was too far close to the end of its life, to make it possible for the new argument to be put into an amended complaint. The argument is still powerful, but it will need to be made in a brand new U.S. House case.