On August 26, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 2015 law that drastically increased the number of signatures needed for Libertarians to get on the Libertarian Party primary ballot. Here is the 8-page opinion in Graham v Tamburri, cv-16-143. As a result of the 2015 law, the Arizona Libertarian primary ballot of August 30, 2016, only has one Libertarian on the ballot for any partisan office.

The opinion says the state has an interest in making it more difficult for Libertarians to get on the party’s primary ballot, because the state has an interest in keeping candidates with little voter support from getting on the November ballot. The 2015 law increased the number of signatures needed for a statewide Libertarian from 133 signatures to 3,034 signatures. Only registered Libertarians and registered independents can sign a Libertarian primary petition.

The opinion says nothing at all about another Arizona law, 16-322.C, which says that a member of a qualified party that has been on the ballot for less than four years can get on his or her own party’s primary ballot with a petition of one-tenth of 1% of the number of votes received by the winning gubernatorial candidate in 2014. For 2016, that law requires 806 signatures.

The opinion fails to discuss the point that the Arizona Libertarian Party has already established that it itself has a modicum of voter support. It has been on the ballot continuously in Arizona since 1992. Therefore, logically, a Libertarian nominee does have a modicum of voter support, because he or she is supported by a group with a modicum of voter support.

The decision says nothing about the part of the 2015 bill that also drastically increased the number of write-in votes needed in a Libertarian primary for someone to be considered nominated. The disparty between the treatment of the Libertarian Party and of the Green Party is even more shocking for the write-in primary threshold. A member of the Green Party who files to be a write-in candidate in the Green Party primary can be nominated with just one write-in vote, whereas a Libertarian for statewide office this year needs 3,034 write-ins, and only registered Libertarians can cast such a vote.

In 2002, in Browne v Bayless, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s June independent presidential petition deadline. But in 2008, the Ninth Circuit ruled the June deadline unconstitutional. This shows that just because the Arizona Supreme Court upholds a ballot access restriction, that doesn’t mean a federal court can’t find the law unconstitutional. The Arizona Libertarian Party has a case pending in U.S. District Court on the same issue.

In the State Supreme Court case, the party’s U.S. Senate candidate, Frank Tamburri, filed 4,205 signatures, but a Republican, Robert Graham, challenged Tamburri’s Libertarian primary petition, and the challenge was upheld. That is why the State Supreme Court case lists the Libertarian candidate as the Defendant, not the Plaintiff.

Ohio has a strange hybrid system for electing state judges. Parties nominate candidates, but there are no party labels on the general election ballot. Ohio also has laws preventing candidates for state court judge to campaign as party nominees.

On June 30, 2016, independent candidate Gerald Phillips filed a lawsuit, alleging that as to judicial elections, Ohio cannot discriminate in matter of how many signatures are needed to get on the ballot. Candidates for local state judge need 50 signatures to get on a partisan primary (or 25 signatures if the party is small). But independent candidates need 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. Phillips wants to run for Lorain County Common Pleas Judge. He submitted 151 sighnatures, and 138 were valid. But the 1% requirement eqals 778 signatures.

Election officials barred him from the general election ballot, not only because he didn’t submit 778 signatures, but because he voted in the March 2016 Republican primary. Hie lawsuit is Phillips v Lorain County Board of Elections, n.d., 1:16cv-1689. It is before Judge Solomon Oliver, a Clinton appointee.

On May 10, 2016, independent presidential candidate Souraya Faas filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Texas against the independent presidential candidate procedures. Faas lives in Florida and had filed with the FEC as an independent presidential candidate in 2015. The lawsuit is Faas v Cascos, southern district, Houston, 4:16cv-1299. When she filed, she was represented by an attorney. However, he withdrew from the case in July. U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake issued an order on August 17, 2016, saying that he will dismiss the case for non-prosecution if nothing is filed by August 29. Faas has retained a new attorney who expects to re-active the case by that deadline.

Here is information about the Faas candidacy. Faas will attain age 35 on December 19, 2016, and she was born in New York city, so she does meet the constitutional qualifications to be president.