On June 10, U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Kearney, an Obama appointee, denied injunctive relief to an independent candidate for U.S. House in Pennsylvania. The candidate-plaintiff, Orlando Acosta, had sued over the requirement that he collect 5,752 signatures to get on the ballot in the Third District. He has asthma and is in a wheelchair, and he said the health crisis made it impossible for him to collect signatures. Acosta v Wolf, e.d., 2:20cv-2528.

Judge Kearney wrote that Acosta needs 1,000 signatures. His opinion has a footnote to the election code reference, but it is to the part of the law that says primary candidates for U.S. House need 1,000 signatures. The order does not mention that independent candidates need a petition of 2% of the winner’s vote in the last election.

Judge Kearney also cited three precedents that he said denied relief to candidates due to the health crisis. But in two of the cases he cited, the court cut the number of signatures. He cited Garbett v Herbert, a Utah case in which the U.S. District Court cut the number of signatures for primary candidates. He also cited Libertarian Party of Illinois v Pritzker and said, “The district court upheld the state’s ballot access framework”, but actually the court cut the number of signatures down to 10% of the normal requirement.

In the third case cited, Murray v Cuomo, a U.S. District Court in New York had denied injunctive relief to a primary candidate for U.S. House. But the reason she lost the case is that all her signatures were collected by someone who is not a registered Republican. The plaintiff, Scherie Murray, had collected 906 signatures, and she only needed 375. But all of her signatures were invalid because her circulators weren’t members of the Republican Party. New York law doesn’t permit non-members to circulate primary petitions.

The Pennsylvania decision completely ignores the point that Pennsylvania requires more signatures for the plaintiff, than the state requires for statewide independent candidates. Pennsylvania statewide candidates need exactly 5,000 signatures, but candidates in the 3rd U.S. House district need 5,752. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1979 in Illinois State Board of Elections v Socialist Workers Party, 440 US 173, that it is unconstitutional for a state to require more signatures for a district office than a statewide office.

Acosta is a pro se plaintiff. The judge said if he files an amended complaint, his case can survive.

On June 25 at approximately 1:30 p.m eastern time, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in Thompson v DeWine, the case over ballot access relief for Ohio initiatives. The U.S. District Court had granted relief, but the Sixth Circuit had reversed. This was the first case in the U.S. Supreme Court over ballot access in connection with the health crisis.

On June 25, the Independent Party, and the Party for Socialism & Liberation, filed this opening brief in the Eleventh Circuit, in their Florida ballot access case. They are trying to get their presidential nominees on the Florida ballot. They are both ballot-qualified, but because the Federal Election Commission doesn’t recognize them as national committees, they can’t be on for president unless they submit 132,781 signatures by July 15.

The U.S. District Court seemed to feel the FEC provision discriminates, but also seemed to feel the 132,781 signature requirement is constitutional, even though the Eleventh Circuit already struck down Georgia’s presidential petition, which required 51,845 signatures in 2012, the year the Georgia case was filed. The U.S. District Court said the difference is that Florida allows four years to get the signatures, whereas Georgia only required six months. That is not a very meaningful difference. Many courts have determined that it is difficult to petition far in advance of an election; neither potential signers, nor potential circulators, are as interested that far in the future. UPDATE: on June 25 the Eleventh Circuit expedited the case.