On Seotember 28, the Alabama Secretary of State filed a notice of appeal in Hall v Merrill. The U.S. District Court on September 30 had ruled that it is unconstitutional to require an independent candidate for U.S. House to collect 3% of the last gubernatorial vote in special elections. The state hopes to get that reversed.

In the entire history of government-printed ballots in Alabama, no independent has ever petitioned onto the ballot for U.S. House in a special election. Thus the state will be hard pressed to talk about overly-crowded ballots. The case had been brought in 2013 by James Hall, who tried very hard to get on the ballot in the special congressional election held when Congressman Jo Bonner resigned in the middle of his term.