On July 31, the plaintiffs associated with the Democratic Party of Florida, including the Democratic National Committee, filed this document with a Florida U.S. District Court that is hearing Jacobson v Lee, n.d., 4:18cv-262. This is the lawsuit in which Democrats challenge the Florida law that says the party that won the last gubernatorial election shall have all its nominees listed first.

Although couched as a proposed decision that the Democrats wish the Judge would write, this document can really be taken as the final brief of the Democrats. It is 67-pages long and is a useful reference to state laws that mandate neutral procedures to determine who is listed first on the general election ballot. It is also a useful summary of past court precedents on this issue.

Unfortunately, the Democrats argue that the relief they seek should not be given to independent or minor party candidates. Footnote 17 says, “Plaintiffs here do not challenge Florida’s tiered ballot-order system, or the order in which minor party or non-partisan candidates are listed.” Current Florida law says the major party nominees are listed first, followed by the nominees of parties with less than 5% of the registration. Below them are independent candidates.

On August 2, the Iowa Libertarian Party filed a federal lawsuit against the March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidate petitions, and the non-presidential petition deadline for the nominees of unqualified parties. Iowa Libertarian Party v Pate, s.d., 4:19cv-241.

The Iowa deadline had been in mid-August ever since 1953, until 2019, when the legislature moved it to mid-March. Before 1953 the deadline had been in late September, and before that, in early October. So the 2019 change was drastic.

The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie M. Rose, an Obama appointee. Here is the Complaint.

In California and a few other states, groups that are not qualified can become qualified if they persuade enough voters to join their party on voter registration forms. Here is the list of nine groups that have asked California election officials to tally their registrants.

No group has successfully gained qualified status in California by a registration drive since 2003, when the Peace & Freedom Party (which had gone off the ballot in November 1998) gained enough registrations to re-qualify. The last time an entirely new party did a successful registration drive in California was 1995, when both the Natural Law Party and the Reform Party qualified.

For 2020, the number of registrations needed cannot be known exactly, because the law requires .33% of the total state registration. “Total state registration” for this purpose is the number of registered voters in California, not counting the small number whose party affiliation is “unknown.”