The Eleventh Circuit heard Hall v Merrill, 16-16766, on December 13, 2017, and there is still no decision. This is the case in which the U.S. District Court struck down Alabama’s 3% petition, as applied to U.S. House candidates in special elections, on the grounds that there isn’t enough time in special elections to expect anyone to complete such a petition.

Alabama has never had an independent candidate on the ballot in a special U.S. House election, going all the way back to 1893, the year goverment-printed ballots began in Alabama. Therefore it is difficult to take the state’s assertion seriously that the state must worry about a crowded ballot. Until 1971, independent candidates for U.S. House only needed 300 signatures, and still the ballot was always limited to just a Democrat or a Republican in special U.S. House elections; or sometimes only a Democrat was on the ballot.

This lawsuit originated in 2013, and is the oldest pending constitutional ballot access case in the nation.