On September 15, two judges of the Tenth Circuit declined to put the Forward Party nominees for statewide office on the ballot. They did not explain why. There is also no explanation for why only two judges, instead of three, participated in the decision. New Mexico Forward Party v Toulouse Oliver, 26-2145. The two judges are Nancy Moritz, an Obama appointee; and Veronica Rossman, a Biden appointee.

Here is the order.

The only thing of substance the judges said is that the New Mexico Attorney General’s amicus was not proper for this type of procedure.

On September 14, a Democratic congressional candidate in Montana’s Second District dropped his challege to the ballot position of Michael Eisenhauer, his independent opponent. See this story.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was an independent presidential candidate between October 9, 2023, and August 23, 2024. His campaign spent millions on ballot access, and officials in his campaign have not forgotten what they learned about U.S. ballot access laws.

One of the campaign’s officials, Brandon Louhier, has been working hard to establish a new organization that will make all candidacy forms available for free at a webpage. The organization is the Open Ballot Institute. The website will have a vast amount of information about official forms, for anyone preparing to run for public office. Candidates will be able to see the petition forms, the rules for running and getting on the ballot, all on the upcoming website.

The Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. campaign produced other lasting consequences as well. For example, Kennedy won federal ballot access lawsuits against Idaho and Utah which will benefit future independent candidates. And he still has a pending federal ballot access lawsuit in Illinois.