On May 5, the Socialist Workers Party requested Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, to suspend the need for unqualified parties and independent candidates to obtain signatures this year. The letter points out that the Socialist Workers Party has been on the ballot for President in Minnesota in all elections 1948 through 2016.
On April 19, Joshua Eisen, an independent candidate for U.S. House, New York 17th district, filed a lawsuit for ballot access relief. Eisen v Cuomo, 54542/2020. Westchester County Supreme Court. The law requires 3,500 signatures between early April and late May. Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered that the start date for such petitions be put off into the future, but he has not yet announced what the new start date should be. Also he has not cut the number of signatures for independent candidates for any office, even though some time ago he cut the number of signatures for primary candidates down to 30% of the legal requirement.
Eisen asks that electronic signatures be permitted, and that the number for U.S. House be cut from 3,500 to 1,000.
On May 6, the New York State Board of Elections appealed the U.S. District Court decision in Yang v Kellner, the decision that said New York must hold a presidential primary on June 23. In the second circuit, it is case 20-1494.
Ballotpedia has this useful list of lawsuits filed that concern election procedures and the health crisis. The list links to documents concerning each lawsuit.
Ian Millhiser, a prominent author and legal expert, has this essay at Vox about the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court hearing in the presidential elector cases from Washington and Colorado.
His analysis is flawed because he says that in 1952,. the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Ray v Blair that states could require candidates for presidential elector to take an oath that they would vote for the presidential candidate of their party if they were elected. This is not true. Ray v Blair only decided that the Democratic Party of Alabama could bar candidates from their primary unless they took such an oath. Back then, the Alabama Democratic Party chose its presidential elector candidates in a primary. No state currently does that. In all states, presidential elector candidates are nominated by their own party’s state convention or other state meeting (except that in Pennsylvania, the nominees for president choose their own presidential elector candidates).
In 1952 in Alabama, the people taking the oath were not yet presidential electors. They weren’t even nominees for presidential elector. They were only individuals running in a party primary, hoping to win the primary and then become candidates for presidential elector. Ray v Blair was a decision about the rights of political parties to control who gets on their own primary ballot, not a decision about whether states can tell presidential electors what to do.
