On June 22, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed SB 655, which moves the primary for all office from May, to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. In 2020, the primary will be on March 3.

Because the independent candidate petition deadline is 15 days before the primary, this moves that deadline from April to February 16. The old deadline was already too early to be constitutional, and the new deadline is even worse. A lawsuit was already pending against the April deadline, and now the Complaint will need to be amended to challenge the February deadline.

In 1980 a U.S. District Court struck down North Carolina’s old April deadline, in Greaves v North Carolina State Board of Elections. The legislature then moved the deadline to June. But years later, it forgot why it had done that, and moved it to April.

The case against the worst ballot access law in the nation, the Georgia law concerning independent and minor party candidates for U.S. House, is proceeding in U.S. District Court. The case is Cowen v Kemp, n.d., 1:17cv-4660. A great deal of discovery is underway, so the case is taking longer than some other types of cases. All the briefs will be submitted by October 8, 2018, so no matter the outcome, there will be no decision in time for the 2018 election.

On June 21, the North Carolina State Board of Elections removed three Constitution Party nominees from the ballot, because they had run in major party primaries for the same office in May. Two are running for county office, and one for the State House of Representatives. Two had run and lost Republican primaries, and one had lost a Democratic primary.

Rick Hasen’s election law blog has a copy of the letter from the State Board, and Hasen also added commentary that the action was brazen and perhaps without precedent. This is because when the party nominated the candidates on June 16, there was no “sore loser” law affecting minor party candidates. The law forbidding such candidacies didn’t exist until June 20, the day the legislature overrode the Governor’s veto of SB 486.

The party will sue to restore ballot position for these three nominees.

The North Carolina Green Party, the other party that nominates by convention, will hold its nominating convention June 23.