Virginia requires 5,000 signatures for a presidential candidate to appear on a presidential primary ballot. No state requires more. All fourteen Democrats who submitted a petition for the 2020 primary succeeded in getting on the ballot, even though a few of them had fewer than 6,000 raw signatures. See the Virginia Democratic Party’s web page here. The list also shows the order in which the candidates’ names will appear.
There is no Republican presidential primary in Virginia in 2020.
All five qualified parties in Missouri are entitled to have their own presidential primary. Filing closes December 24 at 5 p.m. So far no one has filed in the Constitution Party primary. Howie Hawkins is the only person who has filed in the Green Party primary. Jacob Hornberger is the only person who has filed in the Libertarian primary. See the entire list here. Missouri Secretary of State keeps a running tally.
December 9 was the deadline for candidates to file in the Arizona Democratic presidential primary. Eighteen candidates filed. They merely had to show that they were on the ballot in at least two other states.
Here is the list. There will be no Libertarian presidential primary and no Republican presidential primary, because those parties told the Secretary of State they don’t want a presidential primary.
The Arizona Democratic Party is currently suing the state over the law that puts the nominees of the party that won the last gubernatorial election (within that county) on the top line on the ballot. Mecinas v Hobbs, 2:19cv-5547. On December 16, U.S. District Court Judge Diane J. Humetewa said the state must file its response by January 20, including its expert reports. The state had wanted a deadline of early March 2020 because it says it still hasn’t hired any experts, and professors tend to be too busy at this time of year to decide whether they want to work for the state.
The Democratic plaintiffs then have until February 3, 2020 to submit a rebuttal, and the hearing will be March 5, 2020.
On Sunday, December 22, U.S. District Court Judge Victoria A. Roberts, a Clinton appointee, struck down Michigan’s 30,000-signature requirement for statewide independent candidates. Graveline v Benson, e.d., 2:18cv-12354. Here is the 47-page opinion.
The decision says that until the Michigan legislature changes the law, statewide independent candidates will need 12,000 valid signatures. The basis for 12,000 is that the Michigan law requires 12,000 signatures for offices for which the population in the relevant district is between 2,000,000 and 4,999,999. It happens that there are no jurisdictions in Michigan with that population range, although in the past Wayne County was in that range, so when that was true independent candidates for partisan county countywide office in Wayne County needed 12,000 signatures.
In Michigan, 30,000 signatures is less than 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. The basis for the decision is that the requirement has been in effect since 1988, and in all those years, only two statewide independent petitions succeeded, both for president (Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2004).
