On July 27, independent candidate Christopher Graveline, who is running for Michigan Attorney General, filed a federal lawsuit, challenging the Michigan petition requirement for statewide independents. Graveline v Johnson, e.d., 2:16cv-11844.

In the entire history of the state, only twice has any independent candidate managed to get on the ballot for statewide office using the current requirement, which requires 30,000 signatures by the middle of July. The two were Ross Perot in 1992, and Ralph Nader in 2004.

The primary in Michigan is in August. Generally non-presidential independent candidate petition deadlines are unconstitutional if they are earlier than the primary day, or the day before. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Victoria A. Roberts, a Clinton appointee. Here is the Complaint.

On July 26, a trial state court in New Mexico refused to order Carol Miller onto the November ballot as a candidate for Rio Arriba County Commissioner. She is appealing to the State Supreme Court. Although New Mexico generally requires all candidates to file petitions (except presidential nominees of qualified parties), for some reason New Mexico county candidates running in a primary don’t need any petition. But independents do, so the lawsuit depends on the State Constitutional provision that elections shall be “free and equal” to argue that independent candidates for county office shouldn’t need petitions either.

On July 26, the West Virginia Secretary of State ruled that the Constitution Party nominee for U.S. Senate, Don Blankenship, cannot be on the November ballot even though he has enough valid signatures. The Secretary of State invoked the law, passed this year, that says a candidate cannot petition to be on the November ballot if he was a registered member of a qualified party at any time during that year. See this story.

Blankenship will sue, arguing that the prior disaffiliation law cannot be applied to him because it did not exist until June 2018. Courts generally hold that due process prevents a state from making ballot access more difficult, in the middle of the petitioning period. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed one of these decisions in 1977, Hudler v Austin, a Michigan case.

There are now two states in which Constitution Party nominees must go to court to be on the ballot, because the party’s nominees for some offices had run in major party primaries. In each case, the law cited by states to keep them off the ballot was not passed until after the Constitution Party had nominated its candidates. The other such state is North Carolina.