On September 11, U.S. District Court Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan, a Trump appointee, issued an opinion in West v Pennsylvania Department of State, w.d., 2:24cv-1349. It rejects the procedural objections to the lawsuit that the state had raised. The issue is the unequal Pennsylvania law on presidential elector candidates. Pennsylvania does not parties with 15% of the registered voters to submit any documents whatsoever from their candidates for presidential elector. The Democratic and Republican Parties simply send in a list of their candidates for presidential elector.

But other groups, and independent candidates, must submit separate declarations of candidacy from each of their presidential elector candidates. Furthermore, they must run a full slate of electors. In 2024, West would have been on the ballot in Pennsylvania, except that a few of his candidates for presidential elector did not properly complete the paperwork. Here is the order. It does say that the Department of State per se is not a proper defendant, but that doesn’t matter, because the Secretary of the Department is also a defendant.

Pennsylvania’s discriminatory handling of presidential elector candidates has not yet been declared unconstitutional, but it seems likely that it will be.