August 12 is the California deadline for independent candidate petitions. Because California has a top-two system, independents may no longer petition to get on the November ballot, except for President. The statewide petition requires 178,039 signatures. No one submitted such a petition, except that Rocky De La Fuente submitted approximately 2,000 signatures. He is suing California in federal court over the deadline and the number of signatures. No one has completed the California independent presidential petition since 1992. De La Fuente is the first presidential candidate to challenge the California independent petition, which was written in 1976. The law before 1976 was even more difficult, and Gus Hall, the Communist Party presidential nominee, challenged the old law in 1972 and got the law improved somewhat.

Evan McMullin filed to run for president in Colorado this week, and he listed Nathan Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate. But Johnson is a stand-in. Here is information about him. Thanks to Andy Craig for that link.

The Colorado Secretary of State has released the list of presidential candidates who are not the nominees of any of Colorado’s five qualified parties. Here is the list. There are 18 names on the list. Each of the five qualified parties will also have a nominee, so that makes 23.

The greatest number of presidential candidates on the general election ballot in the past was 16, in Colorado in 2012 and also in 2008. Colorado requires no petition for president in the general election, just a fee of $1,000. There have been many presidential primary ballots in the U.S. with more than 16 names on a single ballot, especially in New Hampshire.

The Secretary of State had previously released a list on August 5. Between August 5 and August 10, six candidates filed. Those eight who filed in the last five days are: Rocky De La Fuente, Tom Hoefling (America’s Party), Gloria La Riva (Socialism & Liberation), Bradford Lyttle (Nonviolent Resistance/Pacifist), Michael Maturen (American Solidarity), Emidio Soltysik (Socialist Party), Mike Smith, and of course Evan McMullin (whose ballot label will be “unaffilated”).

This post originally said 21 candidates would be on, but it has been re-written because two more were added.