On March 30, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed SB 28. It deletes language added in 2017 that says independent candidates must have this label on the ballot: “Does not qualify to be listed on the ballot as affiliated with a political party.”

The only independent candidate on the Utah ballot in 2018, Marsha Holland, who was running for the legislature, learned that many voters read this to mean that she was not “qualified”, and that injured her campaign. She filed a federal lawsuit in 2019 against that language, and the state asked that the case be delayed until the 2020 legislature could have a chance to fix the problem. The problem has now been fixed, so the lawsuit will be dismissed.

John Meyer, an independent candidate for Attorney General of Montana, has sued in state court to force the state to let him use electronic signatures. He needs 16,639 signatures by May 25. See this story.  Meyer v Stapleton, 18th judicial district, Gallatin Co., DV-20-362C.

Here is his campaign website, which has a buttom for individuals to provide a signature.

On March 28, Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill, a Democrat, asked the Governor to suspend the need for petitions for the general election, for parties that are already ballot-qualified for at least one statewide office. Connecticut is unique in that qualified status is office-by-office. Parties that polled 1% for a particular office in the last election are on the ballot automatically, but just for that one office.

The Secretary of State’s recommendation would allow the Working Families, Independent, Green, and Libertarian Parties to be on the ballot for all partisan office, instead of just the offices for which they polled 1% in the last election. Here is the letter.