On September 25, a U.S. District Court in Mississippi ruled against Brian Moore, in the lawsuit to place him on the ballot as the presidential nominee of the Natural Law Party. The issue was whether the state should have accepted his paperwork, which was submitted on the deadline at 5:10 p.m. He plans to appeal. Thanks to Darcy Richardson for this news. The judge ruled orally from the bench; nothing is in writing yet.
It would have been nice to win this one, but really, if you can’t get to the office by closing time on the last day for filing and come 10 minutes late, you should expect that the State will screw you.
It doesn’t make it right, but you should expect it.
Next time get up earlier, or what I have done on dozens of ballot drive efforts: stay up all night on the last night.
He needs to come file in Texas. We don’t believe in deadlines!
Or, if Brian Moore can’t get over to Texas, he should come to South Carolina and file here. We seem to have some kind of roulette system for deadlines—and Brian might be lucky! I guess it depends on which party you represent and how the two major parties view the potential impact of your filing. Even the Federal District Court here has been inconsistent!
@1: According to the 9/9 BAN story on Mississippi and Louisiana, “The office had previously said the true deadline was midnight, and that there was no cause for concern.” Apparently, no time deadline is specified anywhere, and it wasn’t until after the fact that the BoE decided 5 pm was the deadline.
Why did Moore bring this suit in federal court rather than state court? It would be up to a state court to rule on what the actual statutory deadline is.