On May 5, the Sixth Circuit issued an order in Esshaki v Whitmer, 20-1336, the case over whether the Michigan primary petition requirements were too severe this year due to the health crisis.  The panel agreed that the original requirement was too difficult to be constitutional for 2020.  But it said that the U.S. District Court should merely have ruled that it was too difficult, and let the state decide what to replace it with.

The majority decision is not signed, but was authored by either Judge Alice M. Batchelder, a Bush Sr. appointee; or Judge John K. Bush, a Trump appointee.  The third judge, Jane B. Stranch, an Obama appointee, felt the U.S. District Court acted appropriately when he set a new petition standard of 50% of the original requirement.  Judge Stranch’s dissent is longer than the majority order, and cites many instances when the U.S. Supreme Court approved lower court orders that imposed specific policies (to be in place temporarily) when the old law was invalidated.

The Eleventh Circuit will hear Cowen v Raffensperger, 19-14065, on Friday, May 22.  This is the case filed in 2017 against the Georgia petition requirement for independent and minor party candidates for U.S. House.

The 5% (of the number of registered voters) requirement has existed for U.S. House since 1943.  No minor party has ever complied with it in 77 years.  No independent has complied with it since 1964, and back then the petition validity wasn’t checked, no district crossed county lines, and the petition deadline was in October.

Nevertheless, the U.S. District Court had upheld it in 2019.

The three judges will be Adalberto Jordan, Gerald Tjoflat, and R. Lanier Anderson.  The hearing will be by telephone.

On May 5, the Washington, D.C., city council passed B23-0751.  It makes many changes to laws of all kinds, relating to the health crisis.  Section 23 of the bill lowers the number of signatures needed for a petition to place a candidate for Delegate to the U.S. House, or city-council-at-large, on the November ballot, from 3,000 signatures to 250 signatures.

The bill lowers the general election petition for city council from a ward from 500 signatures to 150 signatures.

The bill also says blank candidate petitions, and initiative petitions, can now be sent to potential signers electronically.  Potential signers must then print the blank petition on their home printer.  They may sign the printed paper, and e-mail the signature with a scan back to the campaign office that is collecting the signatures.  Or, of course, they can also postally mail the sheet back.  The bill also eliminates the requirement that petitions be on legal size paper.  They can now be on standard 8.5 inch by eleven inch paper.

Oddly, the bill does not seem to lower the number of signatures for independent presidential candidates, or the presidential nominees of unqualified parties.