On May 15, the New York Assembly passed AB 3052 by 127-16. Among other things, it moves the deadline for independent candidate petition deadlines from August to May. Here is the text; see section 13, subdivision 9, of the bill, at the bottom of page seven. The bill sets the deadline at 23 weeks, which means it would always be between May 25 and May 31.

That deadline would be held unconstitutional under Anderson v Celebrezze, which said that states cannot have such early petition deadlines, especially not for president. Deadlines in May or later months have been struck down in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nevada, Rhode Island, and South Dakota.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Michael Cusick, claims the provision is needed to comply with the federal law that requires overseas ballots to be mailed no later than 45 days before any federal election. This is an absurd thing to say. No state can print its general election ballot until the major parties hold their presidential conventions, which range between mid-July and the first week in September. Furthermore the bill sets the New York primary (for office other than president) on the fourth day of June, and obviously the general election ballot can’t be printed before the primary.

New York is in the Second Circuit. There are no Second Circuit precedents because no state in the Third Circuit have ever had such early deadlines. The only three states in the Second Circuit are New York, Vermont, and Connecticut. The latter two states have August petition deadlines for independent candidates and the nominees of unqualified parties.

New Jersey holds a gubernatorial election on November 7, 2017. Independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, need 800 signatures by June 6. So far only one petition has been submitted: Vincent Ross, of Edison, whose ballot label will be “We the People.”

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.