On January 30, the Arkansas Senate passed SB 163 by a vote of 27-7. It raises the number of signatures needed for a newly-qualifying party from 10,000 signatures to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, which would be almost 27,000 signatures for 2020. Every Republican Senator voted for the bill, and one Democrat, Senator Greg Leding, also voted for it.

Twice, a U.S. District Court had ruled the old 3% petition unconstitutional, in 1996 in a Reform Party case, and again in a 2006 Green Party case.

Furthermore, the deadline for the petition is now January 2. Yet the federal courts had twice in the past ruled that similar Arkansas party petition deadlines were unconstitutional. In 1977 the American Party won a lawsuit that the April deadline was too early. In 1996 the Reform Party won a lawsuit against the January deadline. Every time a party won against the deadline in court, the legislature would fix it, but then a few years later they would forget what had happened, and make it earlier again. After the 1996 decision the legislature moved that deadline to July, and then to May, and then to January.

If this bill is signed into law, it will be an easy target for a lawsuit.

West Virginia Delegate Marshall Wilson has introduced HB 2753. It codifies the existing practice that lets unqualified parties use stand-in presidential and vice-presidential candidates on their petitions. It also says stand-ins can be used for gubernatorial petitions.

Stand-ins are especially useful for independent presidential candidates who haven’t chosen their vice-presidential running mate when the petition starts to circulate. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the news about the bill.

New Hampshire House Bill 643 would move the non-presidential primary from the second Tuesday in September to the second Tuesday in June. It is sponsored by four Democratic representatives, and has a hearing in the House Election Law Committee on January 30.

New Hampshire petition deadlines for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties are tied to the date of the non-presidential primary. So if this bill passed, the petition deadline would be in May instead of August. Furthermore, New Hampshire requires independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, to submit a declaration of candidacy approximately two months before the primary, so those declarations would be due in March. The declaration law even applies to independent presidential candidates.

The bill would also shrink the time for the full party petition, which cannot be circulated before January 1 of an election year. It would now be due in May instead of August.

If the bill passed, New Hampshire ballot access deadlines for independent candidates would be unconstitutional. New Hampshire is in the First Circuit, and in 1980 the First Circuit struck down Maine’s independent presidential petition deadline of April 1, in Anderson v Quinn, 634 F.2d 616.