On February 23, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order in Carter v Chapman, 7 MM 2022, setting out a plan for U.S. House district boundaries. The vote is 4-3. The court also ordered that the primary will be held May 17, which is the date that would have been in place if there had been no litigation over redistricting.

The state elections division will now calculate the number of signatures needed in each U.S. House district for independent candidate petitions, and the petitions for the nominees of unqualified parties. Those petitions start to circulate on March 16, and are due August 1. The formula for the number of signatures, set forth in section 2911 of the Election Law, requires a great deal of work by election officials. They must calculate the number of votes received by the winning candidate for U.S. House inside each new district, using election returns from November 2020. This means they must match up the new boundaries with old election returns, requiring a precinct-by-precinct analysis. It would be far easier for the Pennsylvania legislature to require a fixed number of signatures for such petitions for each district, such as, for example, 2,000 signatures.

The calculation will probably show a few districts in which the new requirement is over 5,000 signatures. However, the statewide independent petition is 5,000 signatures. Under the U.S. Supreme Court decisions Illinois State Board of Elections v Socialist Workers Party (1979), and Norman v Reed (1992), it is unconstitutional for any U.S. House petition requirement to be greater than the statewide petition.

On February 22, Thomas Schneider, the former Mayor of Florissant, Missouri, said he will run as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate this year. He will need 10,000 signatures, due in late July. See this story.

The last independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Missouri was Craig O’Dear, in 2018. He got 1.41%.

On February 21, the Idaho House passed HB 439 by 36-32. Current law lets primary voters join the Republican Party on primary day, and then they can vote in the Republican primary. The bill says no one may vote in the Republican primary who has not been a registered member of that party for the last two months.

The bill has less impact on the Democratic primary because the Democratic Party has exercised its option to let independents vote in its primaries.