On May 12, the Alabama Secretary of State said primaries will be held for U.S. House districts 1,2,6, and 7 on Tuesday, August 11. This automatically sets the petition deadline for minor party and independent candidate petitions for those races on that same August 11 day.

Under several precedents that apply to Alabama, the state must cut the number of signatures from the normal 6,000 signatures, to 12.3% of the normal number. Thus the average number of signatures for this year’s petitions for U.S. House would be approximately 738 signatures.

Here is the Secretary of State’s announcement. It says petitions for minor party and independent candidates are due August 11 at 5 pm, but he says nothing about how many signatures will be required. Under Hall v Merrill, 212 F Supp 3d 1148, the state must reduce the number of signatures.

On May 12, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman, a Clinton appointee, refused to issue a Temporary Restraining Order against the new Wisconsin law that bans out-of-state circulators (except for presidential candidate petitions). He still may issue a Preliminary Injunction later. He didn’t issue a TRO because the Wisconsin primary petitioning period is in process, and he cited the Pursell Principle, in which federal courts are not supposed to order any changes too close to an election. Americans for Citizen Voting PAC v Wolfe, e.d., 2:26cv-786. Here is the ruling.

On May 12, the same day the Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the two cases over U.S. House redistricting, the Court issued opinions. The Court ruled in favor of the new districts in both cases.

Here is the Opinion in the case over compactness.

Here is the opinion that says filing a referendum petition does not freeze the new law. Instead only after the signatures have been checked does the petition stop the new law. So the voters will decide whether to repeal the new district boundaries, but not until November 2026. The new districts will be used for November 2026.