On July 25, the Virginia Constitution Party nominated Sheila “Samm” Tittle for president, and Matthew Hehl for vice-president. The party is not ballot-qualified, but will try to collect 2,500 valid signatures before the deadline, August 21.
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This Patch story says Kanye West’s campaign paid circulators $10 per signature, in Illinois. As far as is known, Illinois is the only state in which West has filed a ballot access petition. It has been challenged and it may take a few weeks to adjudicate that challenge.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pittman will hold a trial in Miller v Hughs, w.d., 1:19cv-700, on July 12, 2021. This is the case filed in 2019 against virtually all the Texas ballot access that affect minor and new political parties, and independent candidates.
On July 23, Joseph Kishore, the Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate, filed this brief in the Sixth Circuit in his Michigan ballot access case. Kishore v Whitmer, 20-1661. He wants to be on the ballot as an independent candidate, which requires 12,000 signatures, to be collected from mid-January to mid-July. He argues that the health crisis made this impossible. No statewide independent candidate petitions were submitted by anyone in Michigan this year. The U.S. District Court had denied him relief on July 8.
On July 15, the West Virginia Democratic Party won a procedural ruling in Nelson v Warner, s.d., 3:19cv-898. This is a Democratic Party case against the law concerning the order of candidates on general election ballots. It says the party that won the presidential election within that state at the last election shall have the top line.
The 20-page ruling says the party and the other plaintiffs have standing. It is likely that a decision on the merits will be released during August 2020. The case is before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chambers, a Clinton appointee.
The Democratic Party has won a somewhat similar case in Minnesota this year, and has lost similar cases on procedural grounds in Arizona and Florida. Its Texas lawsuit is still undecided.