North Carolina Representative Ken Goodman (D-Rockingham) has told the press in 2017 he will introduce a bill to help independent candidates. He is rightly critical of the extremely repressive ballot access requirements in North Carolina for independent candidates. They are so severe, no independent has ever appeared on a government-printed North Carolina ballot for Governor, U.S. Senator, or U.S. House. And the only time the independent presidential petition was used successfully was in 1992, when Ross Perot complied.

Unfortunately, Representative Goodman wants to introduce a bill in 2017 saying all independent candidates would run in a primary that was for independent voters, and the person who won that primary would be on the November ballot with no petition. There are two problems with this idea: (1) the filing deadline for a North Carolina primary is in early December of the year before the election; (2) independent voters, almost by definition, are not associated with each other, and there is no logical underpinning to treating them as a party. In 1980, the North Carolina petition deadline for independent candidates was declared unconstitutionally early, and that deadline was in April. If April of the election year was too early, surely December of the year before the election could not stand.

The purpose of the independent candidate ballot access procedures is to give general election voters another option, if voters are unhappy with all the party nominees for any particular office.

Although Representative Goodman says he wants to help independent voters, he is not among the 28 North Carolina Representatives who co-sponsored HB 509 in the current session.