On March 2, Dan Whitfield filed this supplemental brief in his ballot access case, Whitfield v Thurston, 20-2309. The issue is whether Arkansas should have permitted petitioning relief in 2020 for independent non-presidential candidates, who were forced to circulate their petitions during the months of February, March, and April. The health crisis could not have been predicted, and social distancing rules began in March 2020. Whitfield needed 10,000 signatures, because he was running for U.S. Senate.
The supplemental brief was requested by the judges, and concerns mootness. Here is the state’s brief, which argues that the case is moot. The state’s brief quotes a Seventh Circuit opinion, Krislov v Yarbrough, issued February 22, 2021, which says that that Illinois ballot access case is moot because the plaintiff-candidate doesn’t intend to run in future elections. But the Seventh Circuit opinion on mootness is wrong. The U.S. Supreme Court said in Moore v Ogilvie, in 1969, that a constitutional ballot access isn’t moot once the election is over, even if the candidate-plaintiff does not intend to run in future elections. This is mentioned in a separate 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case, Richardson v Ramirez, 418 US 24, that neither brief mentions. See page 35 of Richardson v Ramirez, which says, “the particular candidacy was not apt to be revived in a future election.”