Linda Muculloch, who was Montana’s Democratic Secretary of State 2008-2016, has an op-ed published in several large Montana newspapers that says the state should invalidate the 2020 Green Party petition, which has enough valid signatures, because Republican Party activists paid the circulators to get the signatures.

She ignores the fact that the petition was signed by 11,000 voters. To invalidate the petition would be a violation of the rights of the signers. It would be equivalent to invalidating an election because the winning candidate committed campaign finance infractions. Once a candidate has won an election, and the election returns are not disputed, it would be injury to the voters who supported that candidate to declare the office vacant.

There is no Montana law, or law in any state, that bars persons from paying for a petition drive to qualify a party, even if the payers are not party activists. In 2004, Republicans paid for circulators to place independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the Michigan ballot. The Democratic Party tried to invalidate the petition (which had enough valid signatures), but the Michigan State Appeals Court properly said there is no basis to invalidate a petition for a candidate just because the candidate himself didn’t arrange for the payment of the circulators. DeLeeuw v Board of State Canvassers, 688 NW 2d 847 (2004).

The real problem with the Montana election law is that it forces small qualified parties to nominate by primary. The Green Party wants to be on the ballot in Montana, especially for president; but it doesn’t wish to run anyone for U.S. Senate. If the party could nominate by convention, it would be free to avoid the Senate race. But because Montana forces it to nominate by primary, and has an open primary, there is nothing the party can do to avoid having a Senate candidate. McCulloch, as a former Secretary of State, ought to be aware of that. McCulloch is on the Board of Advisors to “Let America Vote”, yet she is trying to prevent Montana voters from voting for the Green Party in 2020.

The Keene Sentinel has this story about the Libertarian Party’s request to the New Hampshire Secretary of State to suspend petition requirements.

No one in New Hampshire ever needs a petition to get on a primary ballot, but the general election petition requirements are fairly stringent. Although the Libertarian Party had not yet been circulating a presidential petition, it had been circulating a petition for U.S. Senate, Governor, and other offices.

On April 6, the Independent Party of Florida, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, filed a request for injunctive relief in U.S. District Court, in their lawsuit to overturn the law that prevents them from putting a presidential nominee on the Florida ballot. Independent Party of Florida v Lee, n.d., 4:20cv-110.

The two parties are both ballot-qualified in Florida, but in September 2016 the Secretary of State, for the first time, decided to enforce a 2011 law that says ballot-qualified parties can’t place a presidential nominee on the ballot unless they Federal Election Commission recognizes them as a “national committee”, or unless they submit a petition of 1% of the registered voters (which this year requires 132,781 signatures).

The 2011 law was not enforced in 2012 because the Secretary of State said at the time that he had no official knowledge of which parties are recognized as “national committees.” But a different Secretary of State in September 2016 reversed that decision (without even acknowledging the old policy) and removed the presidential nominees of those two parties from the ballot. The Independent Party’s presidential nominee in 2016 was Evan McMullin, an independent candidate who polled 731,733 votes in the nation even though he was only on the ballot in eleven states.