Indiana State Senator Greg Walker has again introduced his ballot access bill. It lowers the vote test from 2% of the Secretary of State’s vote, to one-half of 1%. It lowers the statewide petition for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties from 2% of the Secretary of State’s vote, to exactly 4,500 signatures, with 500 signatures from each of the 9 U.S. House districts.

Before 1987, the vote test was one-half of 1% and the statewide petition was also one-half of 1% of the last Secretary of State’s vote.

Currently Indiana requires more signatures for a presidential candidate running in the general election, as a percentage of that state’s last presidential vote, than any other state, when the states are compared using the easiest method in that state.

On January 13, U.S. Senator Cory Booker withdrew from the Democratic presidential race. Thanks to Political Wire for this news.

In 2016, Rocky De La Fuente sued Arizona over its independent presidential primary ballot access law. It required almost twice as many signatures as were needed for a new party in 2016. The independent presidential petition requirement was 35,514 signatures, but the party petition was 20,119. Courts in Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina had held that it is unconstitutional for a state to require more signatures for a single independent candidate than for an entire new party.

Also, the Arizona independent presidential petition had not been used since 2008, and the U.S. Supreme Court has said that ballot access procedures that are seldom used are probably unconstitutional.

The case moved very slowly, but finally in 2019, a U.S. District Court Magistrate upheld the law. De La Fuente appealed to the Ninth Circuit. However, on January 9, 2020, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal because De La Fuente had failed to file his opening brief by the deadline.

This had been De La Fuente’s only ongoing ballot access case that relates to getting on the ballot in the general election.