On April 26, the Eighth Circuit remanded Moore v Martin back to the U.S. District Court, so that the District Court can specify whether the March 1 paperwork deadline for independent candidates should be enjoined. The case had been filed in 2014 over the independent candidate deadline. In January this year, the U.S. District Court had struck down the petition deadline, and had said that the plaintiff, Mark Moore, may be an independent candidate in 2018 assuming he submits a valid petition by May 1. But the U.S. District Court January 2018 ruling did not say whether the U.S. District Court had also meant to invalidate the March 1 deadline for filing a declaration of candidacy.

There are a few states that require independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in advance of the petition deadline. Such early deadlines for paperwork have been struck down in South Carolina and West Virginia. Other states that still require an independent to file paperwork in advance of the petition deadline are Georgia, Kentucky (for state office only), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Texas.

There seems to be little state interest in requiring independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy months before the petition is due. The whole point of the independent candidate procedure is to give voters a chance to put a new candidate into the race, if developments early in the election year create a public demand for a new candidate. But requiring independent candidates to have filed a declaration of candidacy early in the year defeats that purpose.

Ed Kilgore has this analysis of how California’s top-two system is subject to manipulation by both Democratic and Republican Party leaders. Kilgore is the political columnist for New York Magazine.

On April 25, Congressman Doug Lamborn filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the state law that requires circulators of primary petitions to be residents of Coloado. Goodall v Williams, 1:18cv-980. The case hasn’t been assigned to a judge yet. Lamborn is forced to file this lawsuit if he is to get on the June 26 Republican primary ballot. A few days ago, the Colorado Supreme Court determined that two of his circulators were not bona fide Colorado residents. Here is the complaint.