On October 1, the North Carolina State Board of Elections filed this brief in Kopitke v Bell. That is the lawsuit filed by an independent presidential candidate, Kyle Kopitke, and an independent U.S. House candidate, Greg Buscemi. The North Carolina independent candidate petition is due March 3, 2020, which is clearly unconstitutional as applied to independent presidential candidates under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze.

The state’s brief is lengthy, but nowhere mentions that glaring flaw in the law. The lawsuit also challenges the statewide independent law because it requires approximately six times as many signatures for an independent as for a new party. That violates a U.S. District Court decision from North Carolina, DeLaney v Bartlett. The state’s brief says DeLaney v Bartlett is no longer good law.

The lawsuit also challenges the law that requires declared write-in candidates to file a petition of 500 signatures (for statewide office). The state says that law is “de minimus” and need not be defended because it is so easy. In practice, though, it is not easy, and many significant presidential candidates tried and failed to meet it, including Ralph Nader in 2000, Jill Stein in 2012, and Evan McMullin in 2016. The basis for the challenge is that there is no state interest in requiring a petition for a write-in candidate, because a write-in candidate’s name does not contribute to a cluttered ballot.

On October 1, U.S. District Court Judge Morrison England issued a 24-page opinion, explaining why he had orally enjoined California’s new tax returns-ballot bill on September 19. The judge says the law violates the Constitution in multiple ways: it adds a qualification; it violates voting rights; it violates equal protection; and it is preempted by a federal law that already requires federal employees (including President Trump) to fill out certain financial disclosure forms. It violates equal protection because it doesn’t apply to independent or write-in candidates.

There are five cases combined, but the case listed first in the opinion is the one that was filed first in the eastern district. Jerry Griffin, the first-named plaintiff in that particular case, is a registered Republican voter. Therefore, almost by a random process, this case will probably go down in the history books as Griffin v Padilla.

The opinion says that the law’s proponents have exaggerated when they have said that all presidential candidates starting in the 1970’s revealed their tax returns. Among the presidential candidates listed in the opinion who didn’t release them is Ralph Nader. Also the opinion points out that President Gerald Ford never released his tax returns, although he did release a summary of his tax returns.

The Sarasota Herald-tribune has this op-ed by the chair of the Florida Republican Party about the top-two initiative that is likely to qualify for the Florida 2020 ballot. State Senator Joe Gruters correctly points out that the top-two initiative is not an initiative for an “open primary.” He also says that while proponents claim their initiative would promote centrist politics, that has not happened in California, which continues to have the most polarized legislature in the nation after nine years of the top-two system.