On May 16, the Texas legislature passed SB 44 almost unanimously. It says that candidate petitions, whether independent candidates, or candidates seeking to be on a primary ballot, are deemed to have enough valid signatures unless they are challenged. And anyone who challenges must specify which signatures are being challenged; no one can file a “general” challenge.
Here is the text. It adds the sentence “Unless the petition is challenged, the authority is only required to review the petition for facial compliance with the applicable requirements as to form, content, and procedure.” Also, “A challenge must state with specificity how the application does not comply with the applicable requirements as to form, content, and procedure. The authority’s review of the challenge is limited to the specific items challenged and any response filed by the challenged candidate.”
The bill also restores the need for primary candidates for statewide judicial posts to submit a petition, to get on the primary ballot. Such petitions need 50 signatures from each of the 17 State Court of Appeals districts in the state. This primary judicial petition had been in effect in Texas primaries in the past, but it had been repealed for the 2016 election. The absence of the need for a primary petition is one reason the Democratic Party had a full slate of statewide judicial candidates in 2016, something the Democrats had not had in recent elections earlier than 2016. Thanks to Jim Riley for information about SB 44.