On June 16, the Eighth Circuit heard Libertarian Party of Minnesota v Simon, 20-2244. The issue is the mandatory language on non-presidential independent petitions, that says the signer “does not intend” to vote in the upcoming primary for the office that the petition relates to. The U.S. District Court had upheld the law, ruling that just because a signer does not intend to vote in the upcoming primary on the day that the petition is signed, the voter is free to change his or her mind in the future.

Both the judges, and the attorney for the Libertarian Party, seemed to believe that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in American Party of Texas v White that it is constitutional for a state to let petitions circulate before the primary but to bar the signer from voting in the primary. Actually, that is not what the Texas law did, then or now. In Texas the primary is held first, and only after the primary is over does the petition circulate. So anyone who did not vote in the Texas primary is free to sign a minor party or independent candidate petition.

Here is a link to the 34-minute oral argument. The judges are Raymond Gruender, Morris Arnold, and David Stras. Judge Stras seemed to feel that the language on the Minnesota petition is very difficult to understand.

The Buffalo (New York) News has now published two letters to the editor, condemning the 2020 ballot access law that made it far more difficult for minor parties and independent candidates to appear on the ballot.

Here is a letter from Martin Babinec.

Here is the letter from Howie Hawkins.

The North Carolina Board of Elections is in the process of converting all the registered Green Party members, and all the Constitution Party members, to independents. The Board is not asking these voters for their opinion in the matter. The parties didn’t poll enough votes in November 2020 to remain on the ballot, but the Board had said if they complete their 2022 party petitions by mid-June 2021, they could keep their registrants.

Very few states don’t allow voters to be registered members of unqualified parties. Generally when a party goes off the ballot, election officials don’t disturb their registrants, even though the state often stops putting their registration tally on the state elections website. Other states that do erase registrants when parties go off the ballot are Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. In Oklahoma, when a party goes off the ballot, it loses its registrants but is then free to re-register them even though the party is not ballot-qualified. See this story.