According to this story, and this story, on September 21, the Ohio Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee killed HB 318. Also, the redistricting bill was amended to show that the primary date is March 6, 2012. As a result, the Ohio 2012 primary (for president and all other partisan office) will be in March, not May. This means that the statutory deadline for petitions to qualify a new party, in 2012, will be in December 2011, not February 2012.
On September 7, 2011, a U.S. District Court had ruled that even if the 2012 primary were in May 2012, that deadline for a newly-qualifying party to submit its petition (3 months before the primary, which means a deadline of early February) is still too early, and therefore the court ordered the Secretary of State to leave the Libertarian Party on the ballot in 2012. That court decision did not discuss the status of the other minor parties that had been ballot-qualified in 2008 and 2010, the Constitution, Green, and Socialist Parties.
Given that the statutory deadline will be in December 2011, this increases the likelihood that the Ohio Secretary of State will agree to include the Constitution, Green, and Socialist Parties on the 2012 ballot, and probably Americans Elect as well, without more litigation.
As usual — a robot bureaucrat can NOT *agree* that a LAW is un-constitutional.
That is the business of the courts — still *some* separation of powers in the U.S.A.
Tyranny BY DEFINITION = legislative, executive and judicial powers in the same person(s).
I wonder if the would-be candidates for those parties realize that the filing deadline for a March primary is in December.