The September 3 Arizona court ruling, saying an independent presidential candidate must not be registered into a ballot-qualified party, is unprecedented. Never before in history has any presidential candidate been kept off any ballot (general election ballot, or presidential primary ballot) on the basis of his or her voter registration partisan choice.

In general elections, even major party presidential nominees have sometimes qualified as independent candidates. Harry Truman qualified as an independent presidential candidate in 1948 in Louisiana and Mississippi, because the Democratic Parties of those states refused to list him on the general election ballot. If the Arizona 2020 Kanye West decision had been applied to Truman, Truman could not have been on the ballot in those states. Truman would have also qualified as an independent in Alabama, but he missed the May 1948 deadline. South Carolina at the time did not have government-printed ballots, but if it had, Truman would have tried to qualify in South Carolina as well.

In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower qualified as an independent presidential candidate in Mississippi. He was listed twice, both as an independent and as a Republican. Mississippi permits fusion. Eisenhower got far more votes as an independent than as a Republican.

In 1968, Hubert Humphrey qualified as the nominee of two minor parties in Alabama, because the Alabama Democratic Party wouldn’t put him on the ballot.

On September 1, some Illinois Republican Party activists filed a state court lawsuit to remove William Redpath from the ballot. Redpath is the Libertarian nominee for U.S. House, 6th district. His petition was challenged earlier this year, but the administrative body that hears ballot access petitions ruled that Redpath’s petition has enough valid signatures.

The lawsuit alleges that Redpath does not have enough signatures, if people who signed his petition and who had already voted in the March 2020 primary are not counted. There is no Illinois law that says primary voters can’t sign for an independent candidate or the nominee of an unqualified party. But the lawsuit alleges that this requirement is “implicit”. The case is Bixler v Illinois State Board of Elections, 2020MR775, Sangamon County Circuit Court.

Illinois law once did provide that primary voters could not sign for an independent candidate, but that law was repealed in 1975.

On September 3, an Arizona state trial court enjoined Arizona election officials from printing Kanye West’s name on the ballot as an independent candidate, because he is a registered Republican in his home state of Wyoming. Clayton v West, superior court, Maricopa County.

Never before in history has any presidential candidate been kept off any state’s ballot because of how he or she is registered to vote.

West’s petition had also been challenged because his electors were mostly registered Republicans, but by the time of the court proceeding, they had all changed their voter registration to “independent.” The Arizona election law says only registered independents can qualify as independent candidates, but it does not have a deadline for how long they have been registered.

The challenger also said that presidential elector candidates must file a campaign finance statement, but no party nominees for presidential elector ever file such a document. The decision does not decide that issue. Thanks to Derek Muller for the link. Muller has this commentary on the decision; he disagrees with it.

Arizona is in the Ninth Circuit, and the Ninth Circuit ruled in Schaefer v Townsend that congressional candidates cannot be kept off the ballot just because they aren’t registered to vote, because that would be adding to the qualifications listed in the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court said on July 6, 2020, in Chiafalo v Washington that the same principle applies to presidential candidates, and that states cannot add qualifications not listed in the Constitution. Therefore, it seems that any election law regulating how a presidential candidate is registered, or whether he or she is registered, would be unconstitutional.