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.

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.

The Socialist Party will hold its national convention October 25-26, in Newark, New Jersey. Two individuals are actively seeking the presidential nomination. They are Howie Hawkins of Syracuse, New York; and Elijah Manley of Florida. Hawkins is also seeking the Green Party nomination.

Manley is either 20 years old, or 21 years old, and is a college student.

The Socialist Party convention will first vote on whether to have a presidential nominee. If that decision is to have a presidential nominee, then the convention will choose a nominee. That will happen on Saturday, October 26.