The Unity Party, which ran Bill Hammons for president in 2020, is now ballot-qualified in Florida. Here is a list of the qualified parties from the Florida Secretary of State’s website.
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On May 17, out-of-state petitioners filed their Reply Brief in Benezet v Boockvar, 20-2976. This is the case against the Pennsylvania ban on out-of-state circulators for primary petitions. Pennsylvania already permits out-of-state circulators for general election petitions.
In this case, the U.S. District Court had declared the primary election ban unconstitutional, but she wrote the decision so that it only applies to the particular plaintiffs who filed the case. So the appeal, filed by the petitioners, aims to persuade the Third Circuit that the ban is unconstitutional for any future out-of-state circulators.
The City has this detailed article about possibilities for independent candidates, and minor parties, in the New York city election of 2021, not just for Mayor, but for other positions as well.
The hostile 2020 ballot access changes do not apply to petitions other than statewide petitions. Not only that, in 2021, the legislature passed a bill cutting the number of signatures in half (for 2021 only) so a candidate for the general election for New York city citywide office only needs 3,750 signatures. However the 2019 bill moving the petition deadline from August to May does impact the 2021 city petitions. The petition deadline is May 25.
On May 17, U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) issued a joint letter, endorsing the idea of reviving the federal voting rights Act’s preclearance provision. That idea would require all states to pre-clear election law changes with the U.S. Justice Department.
The preclearance portion of the Federal Voting Rights Act was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court some years ago, on the grounds that the criteria for determining which states had to pre-clear election law changes was arbitrary and depended on very old evidence. The new idea would treat all states equally.
The Voting Rights Act pre-clearance provision, while it was in effect, was somewhat helpful to minor party and independent candidate ballot access. For example, in 1966, the Justice Department refused to pre-clear a Mississippi law that raised the number of signatures for statewide independent candidates from 1,000 to 10,000 signatures. Also in 1982 the Justice Department told Alabama that it could not raise the vote test for parties from zero to 20% if the change was going to be made effective immediately. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news about the Manchin-Murkowski letter. Those two Senators do not support HR 1, the Democratic Party’s election law bill that injures minor party ballot access.
On May 7, an Arizona state trial court declined to hear the case Kemp v Arizona Republican Party, Maricopa County, cv2021-5107. Here is the four-page opinion. The judge said the case is non-justiciable because it involves a dispute over the outcome of an election for party office.