On April 3, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, said it is possible, but not likely, that he will run for president as an independent in 2020. See this story.
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Here is the court filing before the Arizona Supreme Court in Arizonans for Second Chances v Hobbs, filed April 1, 2020. This is the lawsuit that says since Arizona already permits electronic signatures for candidate petitions, there is no state interest in refusing to let initiative petitions be gathered the same way.
On April 2, some other Arizona initiative proponents filed a similar case in U.S. District Court, Arizonans for Fair Elections v Hobbs, 2:20cv-658. Here is the Complaint. Thanks to Pat Quinn for the links.
The CNN article says eight states have not yet issued social-distancing orders: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The other forty-two states have. If a state has issued a social-distancing order and has not made any allowance for petitioning, it is likely to face pressure to suspend petitioning, or a lawsuit. But Louisiana allows any candidate to get on the ballot without a petition, so Louisiana is unlikely to be sued. Anyone in Louisiana can get on with a filing fee. Louisiana should be looked at as a model for the other states. Also Vermont has already abolished mandatory candidate petitioning this year.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Nelson will hold oral argument in Pavek v Simon, 0:19cv-3000, on Tuesday, April 24, at 9:30 a.m. This is the Democratic Party lawsuit challenging the law that determines the order of candidates on the general election ballot. The hearing will be by video conference. Individuals who hope to watch are instructed to telephone the clerk of the court to learn how to do that.
On April 3, the Illinois Libertarian and Green PArties filed this motion for preliminary injunction in their ballot access case. The motion makes the case that the U.S. District Court should order the State Board of Elections to put those parties on the ballot, because the health crisis has made it impossible to collect a substantial number of signatures.