On September 17, the Secretary of State of Georgia filed a notice of appeal in Cowen v Raffensperger, the case over petition requirements for candidates for U.S. House who are not nominees of parties that got 20% of the vote in the last election for the office at the top of the ballot. The U.S. District Court had ruled the 5% petition unconstitutional, given that it has existed since 1943 and has never been used by a minor party candidate, and has not been used by an independent candidate since 1964.

On September 16, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court reversed the opinion of the trial court and ruled that New York’s new May petition deadline for independent petitions is constitutional. In the Matter of the Application of Byron W. Brown v Erie County Board of Elections, CAE 21-01234.

The four-page opinion says that the state interests in the May deadline are: (1) “ensuring the integrity and reliability of the electoral process; (2) promoting political stability at the expense of factionalism; (3) upholding the state’s administrative duty to meet federal deadlines for the mailing of overseas and military ballots.”

Therefore, voters in the November 2021 election for Mayor of Buffalo will see only one candidate on their ballot, Democratic nominee India Walton. It is preposterous to say that the state’s interest in the “integrity of the electoral process” is enhanced by giving voters a ballot with only one name on the ballot. It is also absurd to say that the May deadline is needed for administrative reasons. The overseas absentee ballots do not need to be mailed until 45 days before the November election, which means by September 17. New York had an August petition deadline for all the years before 2019 in which the 45-day rule existed, and had no trouble mailing out the ballots on time.

A parallel case on the May petition deadline is pending in the federal courts, but on September 16, the Second Circuit stayed the order of the U.S. District Court that had ordered independent candidate Byron Brown on the ballot. See this story, which came out before the Second Circuit had issued its stay.

On September 15, the Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE), and the Green Party, the Constitution Party, and the national committee of the Libertarian Party filed this amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Crites, 21-226. This is the case over the composition of the Ohio Elections Commission. Ohio law says it must have three members of each of the two largest parties, and one member who is not a member of any party. Thus a minor party member can never serve on the commission.