On August 19, Rocky De La Fuente filed a notice of appeal in the Arizona case over the number of signatures for an independent presidential candidate. De La Fuente v Hobbs. Arizona requires approximately 37,000 signatures for 2020. No presidential candidate has complied with this requirement since 2008, and back then it was 21,759 signatures. Nevertheless, the U.S. District Court upheld it last month.
On August 15, Christopher Graveline, an independent candidate for Michigan Attorney General, filed this brief in his ballot access case, Graveline v Johnson, e.d., 2:18cv-12354.
He filed the case last year, against the requirement that he obtain 30,000 signatures by mid-July. He won injunctive relief and was placed on the ballot. Now the courts must decide if the requirement is unconstitutional. It is likely that they will, given that last year they felt his case was strong enough to merit injunctive relief.
The Independent Party of Oregon statewide registration has slipped this year, so that it is 4.5% of the state total, below the 5% requirement to be entitled to its own government-administered primary. However, the party is more than willing to return to nominating by convention. It has learned during the years that it had a primary that it loses the ability to block major party candidates from also winning the Independent Party nomination via write-ins in the party primary. But when it nominates by convention, it doesn’t need to worry about that. See this story.
On August 16, the California Republican Party filed this reply brief in the State Supreme Court in Patterson v Padilla, the lawsuit over whether the State Constitution requires that all “recognized” presidential candidates (seeking the nomination of a ballot-qualified party) appear on a presidential primary ballot.
Author Darcy Richardson, who was the Reform Party nominee for Governor of Florida in 2018, has filed an FEC form indicating he will seek the Reform Party presidential nomination in 2020. The Reform Party is still on the ballot in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
