On October 18, Hillary Clinton said in a podcast that the Russians are grooming someone to be a third party presidential candidate, and she also said that Jill Stein (Green Party presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016) was a tool of the Russians. See this story.
Tulsi Gabbard, whom Clinton did not name, has already said that she will not be a presidential candidate in the general election (unless she gets the Democratic nomination, of course, which is considered impossible).
On October 10, the Utah Supreme Court released its opinion in Count my Vote v Cox, 2019-UT-60. By 6-1, the Court upheld a severe ballot access barrier for statewide initiatives. The law permits opponents of an initiative to have 30 days after the petition deadline to try to persuade signers to remove their names. During that 30 days, the proponents of the initiative cannot collect any more signatures.
An organized campaign to defeat an initiative may not need to persuade many signers to withdraw their signatures. The law also requires that a statewide initiative have the signatures of 10% (of the last presidential vote) in 26 of the state’s 29 State Senate districts. So the opponents of the initiative only need to target a handful of legislative districts to disqualify an initiative. Even though the petition may easily have the signatures of 10% of the state’s last presidential vote, it can be disqualified if it meets the 10% standard in only 25 of the State Senate districts, instead of 26. Here is the opinion. The particular initiative that was disqualified would have ended the ability of parties to use party meetings in the candidate qualification process. Instead the initiative would have simply let party primaries choose party nominees.
On October 15, the Maryland Libertarian Party filed this brief in the Fourth Circuit in Johnston v Lamone, 19-1783. This is the case that argues that the state has no interest in requiring an unqualified party that has over 22,000 registered members to collect 10,000 signatures if it wants to get back on the ballot. The Libertarian Party feels it is obvious that it has at least 10,000 supporters in the state, because it has more than twice that many registrants. But the U.S. District Court upheld the Maryland law.
Rocky De La Fuente is in the process of filing this cert petition in the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to review the Ninth Circuit decision that upheld California’s ballot access law for independent presidential candidates. No independent candidate petition in California has succeeded since 1992. Important presidential candidates who failed to use the procedure include Eugene McCarthy in 1976, Ralph Nader in 2004, and Evan McMullin in 2016. UPDATE: the case is 19-524. If the state wishes to respond, its brief is due November 21. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the update.
For 2020, California requires almost 200,000 valid signatures, to be collected in 105 days. The petition cannot begin to circulate until the presidential candidate has chosen his or her 55 presidential elector candidates, because the names of all of them must appear on the petition.
Delaware requires presidential primary candidates to file 500 valid signatures in order to be on a ballot. So far Rocky De La Fuente is the only presidential candidate who has filed the petition in Delaware. The state has checked his petition and it is valid. Here is a link to the state’s list. De La Fuente filed for the Republican presidential primary.
