The Eleventh Circuit will hear Green Party of Georgia v Kemp, 16-11689, in Atlanta, on Thursday, January 26, 2017. This is the case in which the U.S. District Court invalidated Georgia’s petition requirement, 1% of the number of registered voters, for president. The U.S. District Court said there was no reason for the state to require approximately 50,000 signatures, especially given the fact that no one had successfully petitioned for president in Georgia since 2000. The U.S. District Court then set the requirement at 7,500 until the legislature changes it.

Even with a requirement of 7,500 signatures in place, no presidential petition succeeded in Georgia in 2016. Jill Stein and Rocky De La Fuente both submitted more signatures than the 7,500 requirement, but the state said neither petition had enough valid signatures. Therefore it will be difficult for Georgia to argue to the Eleventh Circuit that the ballot will be too crowded if the state loses the case.

The state has also consistently argued that the plaintiff political parties lack a modicum of support. But given that Jill Stein polled at least 1,400,000 votes in the nation last month, it will be difficult for the state to argue that the Green Party lacks a modicum of support.

Politico has this story about efforts to persuade presidential electors to vote for someone other than the winner of the popular vote in their own state. There is not a great deal of new news in the story, except for the point that a team of attorneys will defend any such electors if their state fines them for voting differently than expected. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.

Tennessee defines a political party as “at least one of whose candidates for an office to be elected by voters of the entire state has received a number of votes equal to at least 5% of the total number of votes cast for gubernatorial candidates in the most recent election of governor.”

Tennessee, like most states, elects its governors in mid-term years. In 2014, the total number of votes cast for Governor was 1,353,728. Five percent of that number is 67,687 votes. Gary Johnson last month polled over 70,000 votes in Tennessee. His ballot label was “independent.”

There is no real precedent as to whether a Tennessee candidate with the independent label, who polls the needed number of votes, can use that vote to qualify his or her party, if it wasn’t already ballot-qualified. Tennessee didn’t allow independent presidential candidates until 1976. Since then, no independent candidate for president who was the nominee of a political party has met that percentage, except for Ross Perot in 1996, and now Gary Johnson this year. After the November 1996 election, the Reform Party of Tennessee did not ask the state to recognize it as a qualified party, so there is no past ruling or precedent. The Tennessee Libertarian Party may ask the state for a ruling.