August 10 is the Tennessee deadline for a new party to submit a petition for recognition. No group filed such a petition. This is not surprising, because the law requires 33,816 valid signatures. No group has successfully petitioned for party status in Tennessee since the American Party did so in 1968.
A U.S. District Court is expected to rule in the next week on whether the Tennessee party petition procedure is unconstitutionally difficult.
Americans Elect completed the party status petition drive in Tennessee. They just did not end up running any candidates.
No, Americans Elect did not finish their Tennessee party petition. They turned in what they thought was enough, but almost half the signatures were invalid, and they didn’t have enough. They still had more time so they could have finished it, but by then they were quitting anyway, so they didn’t finish. Tennessee is the only state Americans Elect submitted signatures and was told it didn’t have enough. There was quite a bit of discussion about this at the trial held in US District Court on July 11-12. I was one of the witnesses. It was a 2-day trial.
The Constitution Party lists Tennessee as pending, so I am guessing that Darrell Castle submitted an individual or independent candidate petition there: http://www.constitutionparty.com/get-involved/election-central/ballot-access/ According to your spreadsheet, Richard, only a few hundred signatures would have been required for that, so I am not sure what is taking them so long to report verification. Wasn’t there also some sort of lawsuit pending there as well?