This is very old news, but it had not been reported before. In 2012 the South Dakota legislature passed HB 1182, which moves the petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates from June to the last Tuesday in April. South Dakota’s primary is in June.
A similar bill, HB 1234, had failed to pass in 2009, because then-Secretary of State Chris Nelson testified that such a change would probably be held unconstitutional. The First, Third, Fourth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have ruled that states may not require non-presidential independent candidate petitions to be due earlier than primary day. Also, U.S. District Courts in two states in the Sixth Circuit have made similar rulings. South Dakota is in the Eighth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit has never had a case on this issue. However, Arkansas is in the Eighth Circuit and in 1977, a 3-judge district court struck down a similar deadline in Arkansas, and the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed that decision.
There are no decisions in any state upholding independent candidate petition deadlines that are earlier than the primary, or the day before the primary.
Secretary of State Chris Nelson did not run for re-election in 2010, so he wasn’t available in 2012 to give advice to the legislature.
This is a bad thing, because South Dakota is a cold weather state and it is generally still cold there in April. It is more difficult to gather petition signatures in cold weather.
Where is that ballot access case based on Brown v. Bd of Ed ???
How many supercomputers are needed to keep up with the zillion election law changes by the gerrymander monsters in the various regimes ???