BAD ACCESS BILLS PASS IN IOWA AND VERMONT, BUT NOT IN DELAWARE OR NEW HAMPSHIRE

During June, restrictive ballot access laws passed in Iowa and Vermont, but were defeated in Delaware and New Hampshire.

Delaware:  HB 65 would have moved the deadline for a new party to get on the ballot from August to March.  The purpose of the bill was to move the non-presidential primary from September to April, and because the deadline for a new party is tied to the primary date, the bill automatically makes the deadline far more restrictive.

The bill had passed the House overwhelmingly in April and had passed the Senate Elections & Governmental Affairs Committee in May.  But it was never brought up on the Senate floor, and the legislature has just adjourned.

There is no need for Delaware to link the deadline to the date of the primary.  Small and new parties nominate by convention, not primary, so it is irrational to link the deadline to the primary date.

Iowa:  Governor Kim Reynolds signed HF 954 on June 2.  It moves the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, from August to June.

It also makes it far more difficult for a new party to meet the definition of a qualified party.  The old law said a qualified party is a group that polled 2% for the office at the top of the ballot (Governor, president).  The new law keeps the 2% but says the group is not qualified until it has met that vote test three elections in a row.  No other state has ever before required a group to meet a vote test more than once.

The new law appears to be unconstitutional under Williams v Rhodes, the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said states cannot discriminate against new parties relative to old parties.  However, no group would have standing to challenge the new law until after it had polled 2% for Governor or President.  Also such a lawsuit could only be won by a new party.

This is the third time that Governor Reynolds has signed bills making ballot access more difficult.  In 2019, she signed a bill moving the petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from August to March.  That law was held unconstitutional in 2022.

Then, in 2021, she signed HF 413, which increased the number of signatures for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties.  That law is responsible for having kept Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee, off the ballot in 2024.  That was only the second time in history in which a minor party or independent presidential candidate who polled over 25,000 votes in the nation was not on the Iowa ballot (the first was Strom Thurmond, Dixiecrat in 1948, and he had not even tried to get on in northern states).

Adding to Stein’s injury was the fact that Iowa didn’t count her write-in votes, even though Iowa allows write-ins.  Iowa has no procedure for a write-in declaration of candidacy.

Iowa has an unconstitutional county distribution requirement for statewide and U.S. House independent and minor party petitions, and that will probably be challenged in the near future.

New Hampshire:  on June 5, the House defeated SB 222 by 151-168.  It would have required independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties to file a declaration of candidacy in March.  Even presidential candidates would have been required to file such a declaration.  That would have violated the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze, which said that independent presidential candidates cannot be prevented from emerging in the late spring of presidential election years.

The purpose of the bill was to move the non-presidential primary from September to June.  A similar bill had passed in 2021 but had been vetoed by then-Governor Chris Sununu.

As is the case for Delaware, it is irrational for New Hampshire to tie the date of the primary to any procedure involving general election candidates running outside the major parties.  SB 222 partially recognized that idea.  It did cut the link between the primary date and the independent candidate petition deadline, so that the petition deadline would have remained in August.  The bill should also have cut the link between the primary date and the declaration of candidacy for independent candidates, but it did not.

Vermont:  on June 16, the legislature passed HB 474.  Governor Phil Scott signed it on June 25.  It prohibits anyone who ran and lost in a major party primary from then petitioning to get on the ballot as an independent candidate.  Ironically, though, it doesn’t prevent a “sore loser” from getting on the November ballot as a minor party nominee (minor parties nominate by convention).

The bill applies to presidential primaries.  It says, “A candidate who loses a major party primary for any office shall not appear on the general election ballot as an independent candidate for the same office for which the candidate lost in the primary election.”

The bill also requires write-in candidates who want their write-ins tallied to file a declaration of write-in candidacy, due the Thursday before the general election.

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HIGH COURT WON’T HEAR NEW YORK BALLOT ACCESS CASE

On June 2, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Meadors v Erie County Board of Elections, 24-684.  This was the case brought against the May petition deadline for New York independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties.  The Court seems to have come close to accepting this case.  It was considered at the conferences of  February 21, April 25, May 2, May 15, and May 22, but at all those conferences, the Court did not decide whether to hear it or not.

Meadors is the only ballot access case brought by an independent candidate or a minor party that has got even that much attention from the court since 1991.  No other cert petition filed by a minor party or independent candidate on ballot access ever experienced a conference at which the court couldn’t decide whether to take the case (this sentence refers to conferences at which both sides had already filed responses). At least this case had the virtue of causing the Justices to think about ballot access.

The Second Circuit had ruled that the case was moot because the election was over when the declaratory decisions were handed down.  Thus a new case against the deadline can be filed.  The Meadors case involved a “sore loser”, but a future case could be filed by a candidate who doesn’t have that handicap.

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ELEVENTH CIRCUIT SHOCK RULING ON POLITICAL PARTY RIGHTS

On June 12, the Eleventh Circuit revived Catoosa County Republican Party v Catoosa County Board of Elections, 24-12936.  This is the case in which the Catoosa County, Georgia Republican Party tried to bar some candidates for county offices from running in the Republican primary.  The party said the candidates aren’t bona fide Republicans.

The state courts and the U.S. District Court had rejected the party’s lawsuit without even allowing a trial, but the Eleventh Circuit remanded the case back to the lower court.  The Eleventh Circuit also disagreed with the U.S. District Court rationale for dismissing the case.

The lawsuit is based on a 1992 Eleventh Circuit opinion from Georgia, as well as a similar one from Florida.  Both said that the Republican Parties of those states had a Freedom of Association right to keep David Duke, a Ku Klux Klan leader, off the Republican presidential primary ballots.

The U.S. District Court had said that precedent doesn’t apply because the plaintiff in this case is just a county party, not a state party.  But the Eleventh Circuit said that shouldn’t matter.

Also, the U.S. District Court had said that presidential elections are different than elections for other offices, but the Eleventh Circuit disagreed with that as well.

The three judges who signed the opinion are Charles R. Wilson (a Clinton appointee), Robin S. Rosenbaum (Obama) and Nancy Abudu (Biden).  The decision does not reveal which judge wrote the opinion.

If the Catoosa County Republican Party wins this case, the consequences will be monumental.

The Georgia Republican State Committee has already resolved that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is not in good standing because he has defended the validity of the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia (showing that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump).

It is expected that Raffensperger will run for higher office in 2026, but if he is barred from the Republican primary ballot, that would be quite an upset.

The Catoosa County Board of Elections, and the members ot the County Commission, say that if the party wins the case, they will try to persuade the legislature to make Catoosa County elections for county offices non-partisan.  But, news reports say the legislators are not likely to agree.

Of course, Georgia is free to make it easier for independent candidates to get on the general election ballot.  Georgia requires 72,680 signatures for a statewide independent candidate, and even someone as powerful as Raffensperger would have trouble collecting that many signatures, especially as Georgia petition validity rates are always very low.

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NEVADA GOVERNOR VETOES BILL ON INDEPENDENT VOTERS IN PRIMARIES

On June 12, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, a Republican, vetoed AB 597.  It would have let independent voters vote in partisan primaries, other than presidential primaries.

The bill had been introduced by the Speaker of the Assembly, a Democrat, on May 26.  It had passed the Assembly on May 30 and the Senate on June 2, with Democrats voting “yes” and Republicans voting “no.”  Normally a bill would not have moved so fast, but when the Speaker introduces a bill, the rules are more tolerant relative to timing.

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BOOK REVIEW: FIGHT: INSIDE THE WILDEST BATTLE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE

Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes,  2025.  339 pages.

Every U.S. presidential election is always followed quickly by books that describe the campaign.  Fight is one of three books so far that relates the history of the 2024 campaign, and the only one that mentions the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. independent candidacy.

Fight concludes that Kennedy’s withdrawal from the race injured Kamala Harris.  On page 207, it says, “On August 23, the day after the Democratic convention ended, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his independent bid for the presidency.  Many of his Democratic-leaning supporters had already lined up behind Harris, meaning that his third-party candidacy could derail Donald Trump.  Though he registered in the low to mid single digits of most multi-candidate surveys, he was in a position to play spoiler.  Kennedy had built a following through an unorthodox coalition that included vaccine skeptics.  Trump had long pursued Kennedy’s endorsement, and its delivery promised to give him new voters.”

Fight also says on page 25 that both Trump and Biden “wanted to exclude Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the June debate.”  They did this by writing rules for the debate that made it impossible for Kennedy to qualify, regardless of his polling strength.  The rules said Kennedy had to prove he was already on the ballot in states containing a majority of the electoral vote.  The problem was that states don’t check petitions that early in the year.

Page 240 says that Joe Rogan, one of the nation’s most popular podcasters, “appeared to endorse Kennedy in August.”

After Kennedy left the race, Rogan endorsed Trump.

Unfortunately, Fight does not relate that the reason that Kennedy left the race is that the Democratic Party made energetic attempts to keep him off many state ballots.  If Fight had described the Democratic assault on Kennedy‘s ballot access, readers would have learned the painful truth that the Democratic Party is no champion of voting rights for voters who wish to vote for non-major party nominees.

Fight is the only one of the three books on the 2024 presidential election to say that Trump did not receive a majority of the popular vote.  Page 290 says that Trump received 49.7% of the vote.  One would expect any book on the history of the 2024 election to include that information, but the other two books, Uncharted (reviewed in the May 2024 B.A.N.) and Original Sin, do not.

All three books agree that Harris’s biggest mistake was her response to the question, “Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?”  She was asked that in early October, while being interviewed on The View.  She responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”

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ANDREW CUOMO LOSES DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

On June 24, New York City held primaries for Mayor and other city office.  Andrew Cuomo, former Governor, was expected to win the Democratic primary for Mayor, but he lost.

Although there is much media coverage about his loss, news stories do not mention that Cuomo surely lost many votes because of his terrible record on ballot access.  In 2020, he single-handedly forced the legislature to triple the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties.

He also forced the legislature to change the definition of a qualified party, so that the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, the two best-organized national minor parties, went off the ballot.  As a result of Cuomo’s behavior, New York was the only state in the nation in 2024 in which only Joe Biden and Donald Trump were on the ballot.

The Cuomo bill would not have passed if it had been introduced in the traditional way, as a stand-alone bill.  But he inserted these provisions into the state budget bill, and the budget bill could not be amended and had to pass.

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BALLOT ACCESS BILLS

Alabama:  on May 6, Governor Kay Ivey signed HB 258.  It changes the midterm primary date from the fourth Tuesday in May to the Tuesday just prior to Memorial Day.  In most years that wouldn’t change anything, but, in 2026, it changes the date from May 26 to May 19.  Because the petition deadline is also the date of the primary, that change has the effect of moving the 2026 petition deadline to May 19.

Hawaii:  on June 6, Governor Josh Green signed HB 134.  It lets candidates submit their nomination petitions electronically.  The details are not in the bill, but the bill authorizes the State Elections office to issue regulations to implement the idea.  Presumably candidates will be able to scan petitions instead of hand delivering them.

Louisiana:  on June 8, the legislature passed HB 342.  It increases filing fees.  Statewide candidates now pay $750, but, under the bill, U.S. Senate candidates would pay $3,500, and other statewide candidates would pay $2,500.  U.S. House candidates would rise from $750 to $1,500.

The bill also reduces petitions in lieu of the filing fee.  Statewide candidates would drop from 5,000 to 2,500.  U.S. House dropes from 1,000 to 750.  Governor Jeff Nandry hasn’t signed it yet.

Wisconsin:  on June 24, the Assembly passed AB 149.  Current law says qualified parties choose presidential elector candidates either in a meeting with state legislators from that party or from that party’s nominees for state legislator.  The bill says a party can also choose them in a regular state meeting.  Last year, the Green Party was a qualified party but it had no nominees for state legislature, so it chose them in its regular state convention.  Then, Democrats challenged the slate.  The State Supreme Court kept the party’s presidential nominee on the ballot.  If the bill passes, that type of challenge won’t be possible in the future.

Wisconsin(2):  on June 24, the Assembly passed AB 35.  It lets independent candidates withdraw.  Last year Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wanted to withdraw, but it wasn’t legally possible for him to do so.

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NORTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY HAS NARROW ESCAPE

On June 19, the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 that the Green Party is on the ballot for 2026 and 2028.  The law says that a party is qualified if its presidential nominee was on the ballot in at least 35 states in the last election.  Jill Stein was on in 38 states.

However, the two Democrats on the Board voted that the Green Party is not qualified, because its nominee, Jill Stein, had the ballot label “Aurora” in Alaska, “Mountain” in West Virginia, “independent” in Alabama, Idaho, and Tennessee; “by petition” in Nebraska; and “Kentucky Party” in Kentucky.

The law doesn’t seem to require the candidate to have the same label in all 35 states.  It says the party is qualified “if it had a candidate nominated by that group on the general election ballot” of 35 states.

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LEGISLATIVE NEWS

Maine:  on June 11, the legislature passed LD 1666.  It provides that the state would use ranked choice voting for state offices in general elections.  Currently, the state uses it for federal offices in both primaries and general elections, but for state offices it is only used in primaries.  Governor Janet Mills still hasn’t acted on the bill.  Opponents believe the bill violates the state Constitution.

Maine(2):  on June 12, the State Senate defeated LD 508, a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed the voters to choose the Secretary of State and the Attorney General.  The bill had passed the House.  Maine is one of only six states in which the only elected statewide state office is Governor (or the combination of Governor and Lieutenant Governor).  The others are Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Tennessee.

Maine(3):  on June 16, the State Senate defeated LD 252, a bill to withdraw Maine from the National Popular Vote Plan pact.   The bill had passed the House, and the Senate vote was very close, 16-18.  States that have joined the pact have 209 electoral votes.  The pact needs states with 61 more electoral votes.

New York:  on June 17, the legislature passed S7111.  It expands the ability of parties to expel members believed to not be in sympathy with the party’s political stances.  Current law already permits parties to do this, but their county committee must take the action.  The bill says the state committee may also take such action.

The bill was passed at the request of the Working Families Party, which was unhappy that in 2024 Republican sympathizers registered into the party in the 17^th U.S. House district and nominated someone other than the choice of party leaders.  The WFP doesn’t have county committees, so it needed this bill for future incidents.

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RES JUDICATA

The June 1, 2025 B.A.N. front page story had a list of instances when one court had upheld a ballot access law, but then later, in a new lawsuit, the same court or another court had invalidated that same law.

However, the list of such instances was incomplete.  Here are three more instances:

Georgia:  in 1981, the Eleventh Circuit had upheld all the state’s petition requirements for minor parties in McCrary v Poythress, 638 F.2d 1308, a case brought by the American Independent Party.  But, in 2017, the Eleventh Circuit had invalidated the number of signatures for minor party presidential petitions in Green Party of Georgia v Kemp, 674 Fed App’x 974.

Ohio:  in 1970, a 3-judge U.S. District Court had upheld the state’s February petition deadline for independent candidates for all offices, in Socialist Labor Party v Rhodes, 318 F Supp 1262 (s.d.).  But in 1984 and 1985, two different U.S. District Courts in Ohio both invalidated that same deadline (for offices other than president).  Denny v Eyrich, southern district (unreportred); and Cripps v Seneca County Board of Elections, 629 F Supp 1335 (northern district).

Puerto Rico:  in 2000, the Commonwealth Supreme Court had upheld a law that only notaries public could circulate the petition to recognize a new party.  The case was Partido Accion Civil v Commonwealth, 2000 WL 223543.  But, in 2003, the First Circuit invalidated the same law in Guzman v Gracia, 346 F 3^rd 229.

This issue will be important in the pending California lawsuit against the top-two system, Peace & Freedom Party v Weber.  The California top-two law was upheld in 2015 in the State Court of Appeals, and the state argues that the matter is therefore settled.  The plaintiffs dispute that in their brief filed June 26.

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WHO GOT THE LARGEST NUMBER OF WRITE-IN VOTES IN EACH STATE FOR PRESIDENT?

This chart shows the highest number of write-ins for presidential candidates in history, for each state.  The chart only includes actual candidates.  There are probably instances at which a popular figure who was not running received more write-ins, such as Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, and Eugene McCarthy in 1968.

Iowa, Mississippi, and Nebraska are the only states that allow write-ins, and yet which have never counted any presidential write-ins.  It is possible their failure to count write-ins is unconstitutional.  Both Iowa and Nebraska are in the Eighth Circuit, which implied in McLain v Meier, 851 F 2d 1045 (1988), that states must tally write-ins.  Page 1052 says, “We remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss McLain’s proffered amended complaint without prejudice insofar as it alleges that the North Dakota Secretary of State failed to count write-in votes cast in the 1984 general election.  McLain is free to pursue this issue in the state courts.”

State	Candidates	Write-In Total	Year	Party, if any
Alabama	Eugene McCarthy	99	1976	independent
Alaska	Eugene McCarthy	473	1976	independent
Arizona	Ralph Nader	2,062	1996	Green
Arkansas	John Schmitz	3,016	1972	American
California	Eugene McCarthy	58,412	1976	independent
Colorado	Peter Sonski	910	2024	American Solidarity
Connecticut	Eugene McCarthy	3,759	1976	independent
Delaware	Jill Stein	721	2024	Green
Dist. of Columbia	Jill Stein	2,259	2024	Green
Florida	Ralph Nader	4,101	1996	Green
Georgia	Ralph Nader	13,273	2000	Green
Hawaii	write-ins always banned	– –	– –	– –
Idaho	Ralph Nader	12,292	2000	Green
Illinois	Jill Stein	31,023	2024	Green
Indiana	Ralph Nader	18,506	2000	Green
Iowa	none ever counted	– –	– –	– –
Kansas	Jill Stein	1,773	2024	Green
Kentucky	Ralph Nader	701	1996	Green
Louisiana	Claude Watson	55	1944	Prohibition
Maine	Bob Barr	251	2008	Libertarian
Maryland	Ralph Nader	2,606	1996	Green
Massachusetts	Ralph Nader	4,806	2004	independent
Michigan	Gary Johnson	7,774	2012	Libertarian
Minnesota	Peter Sonski	882	2024	American Solidarity
Mississippi	none ever counted	– –	– –	– –
Missouri	John Schmitz	3,428	1972	American
Montana	Eugene McCarthy	460	1976	independent
Nebraska	none ever counted	– –	– –	– –
Nevada	write-ins always banned	– –	– –	– –
New Hampshire	Michael Badnarik	341	2004	Libertarian
New Jersey	William Lemke	9,407	1936	Union
New Mexico	Eugene McCarthy	1,162	1976	independent
New York	Jill Stein	46,698	2024	Green
North Carolina	Ralph Nader	2,108	1996	Green
North Dakota	Earl Dodge	7	1988	Prohibition
Ohio	Claudia De la Cruz	1,794	2024	Socialism & Liberation
Oklahoma	write-ins always banned	– –	– –	– –
Oregon	Roger MacBride	464	1976	Libertarian
Pennsylvania	Ralph Nader	3,086	1996	Green
Rhode Island	Eugene McCarthy	479	1976	independent
South Carolina	Eugene McCarthy	289	1976	independent
South Dakota	write-ins always banned	– –	– –	– –
Tennessee	David Cobb	33	2004	Green
Texas	Ralph Nader	9,153	2004	independent
Utah	Peter Sonski	441	2024	American Solidarity
Vermont	Jill Stein	897	2024	Green
Virginia	Ralph Nader	2,393	2004	independent
Washington	David Duke	180	1988	Populist
West Virginia	Eugene McCarthy	131	1976	independent
Wisconsin	Michael Peroutka	869	2004	Constitution
Wyoming	Ralph Nader	4,625	2000	Green

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MANY STRONG INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES SURFACE

On June 24, Maine State Senator Rick Bennett said that he had changed his registration from Republican to independent, and that he would be an independent candidate for Governor in 2026.   He has been a former state chairman of the Maine Republican Party, a former Republican nominee for U.S. House, a former member of the National Republican Committee, a former President of the State Senate, and a former Republican presidential elector.

He is the third well-known politician to seek a gubernatorial seat in 2026 as an independent.  The others are State Senator Jaso Pizzo of Florida, a former Democrat; and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, running for Governor of Michigan.

Also, Kshama Sawant, who was on the Seattle city council from 2014 to 2024, and who was famous for being a leader of Socialist Alternative, will run for U.S. House in Seattle in 2026 as an independent.  She hasn’t said what her ballot label will be.

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NEW JERSEY 2025 GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION

New Jersey elects its Governor in November 2025.  The ballot will contain five candidates, the nominees of the Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, and Socialist Workers Parties.  For the legislature, there will be two Greens, one Libertarian, and one independent.

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KANSAS FINALLY RELEASES 2024 PRESIDENTIAL WRITE-INS

In response to a Freedom of Information request by Tony Roza, the Kansas Secretary of State recently released the number of presidential write-ins from the 2024 election.  They are:  Jill Stein 1,773; Peter Sonski (American Solidarity) 613; Claudia De la Cruz (Socialism & Liberation) 270; Cornel West 169; Shiva Ayyadurai 8; Beij Boring 8; Doug Bell 5; Christopher Garrity 2; Ajay Sood 2; John Gibb 1.

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AMERICA FIRST PARTY QUALFIES IN FLORIDA

On June 4, the Florida Secretary of State said that the America First Party is now ballot-qualified.  It is not on the ballot in any other state.

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“AMERICA VOTES” WILL CEASE PUBLICATION

Starting in 1956, an excellent reference book of election returns named America Votes has been published every two years.  Unfortunately, the publisher will no longer publish the book.  The last issue will have been for the 2022 election.  Each volume had county-by-county votes for every presidential, U.S. Senate, and gubernatorial election.  It had maps of all the U.S. House district boundaries.  It had a summation of the total vote for each state, starting with 1946, of past gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections.  It carried primary returns.  Each book was usually about 525 pages in presidential years, and 475 pages in midterm years.  It was noted for its accuracy.

The Federal Election Commission will continue to publish its book of election returns, but it only includes federal offices, not state offices, and has no breakdown of the vote by county.