On June 2, the U.S. Supreme Court revealed that at its May 29 conference, it had decided not to hear Meadors v Erie County Board of Elections, 24-684. Thus the Court continues its 34-year practice of refusing to hear all cert petitions filed by minor parties and independent candidates on ballot access. The case had been filed to challenge the May petition deadline in New York, which has existed since 2019. Previous to 2019 it had been August.
Because the Second Circuit had refused to decide the constitutionality of the May petition deadline, it is very likely that a new challenge to that deadline will be filed. The Green Party and the Libertarian Party will probably challenge it in connection with the 2026 election. The deadline makes it impossible to petition during the summer of election years, when there are many outdoor venues of crowds, which helps petitioning.
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
The new challenge will ultimately fail, too.
As the treasurer of the LPNY, I’m not sure who told you we will likely challenge it, as that has not been discussed by the Executive Committee.
Unless someone can present a compelling argument on how the lawsuit would be successful where others have not been I would not vote allocate any funding for that.
It won’t be.
The proposed case would probably succeed. Petition deadlines in May and June have been struck down in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nevada, and South Dakota. The 9th circuit is the court in the Arizona and Idaho cases. The main argument New York state made in the Meadors case is that candidate was a sore loser. That wouldn’t be the situation in any new lawsuit.
Early deadlines are the one characteristic of severe ballot access laws in which we have consistently won in court. The US Supreme Court itself ruled against early petition deadlines in 1968 in Williams v Rhodes, and with summary affirmances in Salera v Tucker in 1976 in Pennsylvania, and in 1977 in Arkansas in Lendall v Jernigan, as well as the most important precedent, Anderson v Celebrezze in 1983 in Ohio.
The proposed lawasuit wouldn’t necessarily cost the LP of New York state any money.
You’re basing what would probably succeed off precedents but as you yourself pointed out any number of times the trend in ballot access cases is not good for minor parties and they have not won a supreme court case or successfully appealed to the supreme court level in decades.
But minor parties and independent candidates still win lawsuits in lower courts. During August 2024 minor party and independent candidates won eight lawsuits. See the Sep. 2024 print issue of Ballot Access News, front page story.
The way to remove the courts and partisan proclivities of judges to protect the status quo duopoly is to abolish ballot access censorship and sore loser laws. The only issues for courts to adjudicate should be fraud in counting of ballots or violence and the treat of violence to suppress the vote of qualified voters.
Ballot access censorship, including sore loser censorship, is at the root of the rise of the fascist police state. The coercion of censorship destroys the ability of citizens to unite to oppose fascism. What candidates of what political party is willing to resist by deed and not just rhetorically to corruption of elections by censorship?
Everything is fascism according to D. Frank Robinson. What a fucking tard.
Ok, let’s see what happens in N.Y., my prediction stands.