The Independent Party of West Virginia has decided not to sue the West Virginia Secretary of State to gain recognition as a qualified party. The definition of a qualified party in West Virginia is a group that got at least 1% for Governor. Gubernatorial elections are in presidential years. In 2020, the Independent Party nominated S. Marshall Wilson for Governor. At the time he was an independent state legislator. He petitioned to be on the ballot for Governor, but partly due to covid, his petition did not succeed.

Then he ran as a write-in candidate, and polled 15,120 votes, which was 1.93% of the total vote cast. The question arose, as to whether his write-in total should be used to recognize the Independent Party. The Secretary of State declined to recognize the party, because of the belief that there was no party organization in existence at the time of the election. The party was organized at that time, and accumulated evidence for a possible lawsuit to gain recognition. But now, a year after the election, the party has decided not to sue. Wilson himself is no longer in the legislature (he didn’t run for re-election, because he was running for Governor) and has lost interest in the Independent Party.

On November 10, Wyoming filed this brief in Frank v Lee, 21-8059. This is the lawsuit that bars First Amendment activity, including petitioning, within 300 feet of a polling place. The U.S. District Court had invalidated it. Generally courts allow such zones if they are at 100 feet, but don’t allow anything bigger.

The Monday, November 8 decision of the Ninth Circuit, striking down the unequal distribution requirement for the Montana petition for party recognition, is finally getting some general press coverage.

Here is the Daily Montanan story.

Also, here is an article about the decision at the blog Piece of Mindful. This blog post is by Steve Kelly.

UPDATE: see this NBC story.