On December 13, the Third Circuit issued an 18-page opinion in Constitution Party of Pennsylvania v Cortes, 16-3266. The decision says that last year’s decision by the U.S. District Court, rewriting the Pennsylvania ballot access laws for minor party and independent candidates, was faulty. The U.S. District Court should not have imposed a county distribution requirement without finding that such a distribution requirement would have no appreciable impact on voting rights.

The Third Circuit sent the case back to the U.S. District Court to give the state and the District Court a chance to show that a county distribution requirement would do no harm to the petitioning candidates. But the Third Circuit also pointed out that county distribution requirements have been struck down by eleven different courts around the nation (including the U.S. Supreme Court, twice); and they have been upheld only by Pennsylvania state courts (relating to primary petitions circulated by Democrats and Republicans), plus one U.S. District Court in Utah in 1972.

Because this issue still isn’t settled, it seems somewhat likely that the Pennsylvania legislature will finally act to revise the state’s ballot access laws. Eleven different Pennsylvania ballot access laws relating to minor party and independent candidates have now been found unconstitutional (either by a court, or by an executive state officer) without the legislature having acted to revise them.