On August 10, Rocky De La Fuente and Jill Stein filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma requirement that independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, file a petition with 40,047 valid signatures by July 15. The Complaint points out that the state irrationally requires more signatures for just a single candidate than for an entire new party. New parties this year needed 24,745 signatures. The Complaint also charges that the deadline is unconstitutionally early. De La Fuente v Ziriaz, w.d., cv-16-914.

On August 9, at least three large newspapers in Ohio took at face value the statement of an Ohio elections official who asserted that no stand-in presidential or vice-presidential candidate had ever before submitted a petition. Here is the Cincinnati story. And here is the Cleveland story. UPDATE: here is the Toledo Blade story.

The truth is that presidential petitions in Ohio have used stand-ins in the past. The Libertarian presidential independent petition in Ohio in 1996 listed Ed Clark as the stand-in presidential candidate, and David Bergland as the stand-in vice-presidential candidate. John Anderson’s Ohio petition used a stand-in for vice-president in 1980. The Constitution Party and the Reform Party both used an independent petition in Ohio in 2000, and Ohio let both of them alter their vice-presidential nominees that year. But the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer reporters did not investigate, and simply believed the Ohio elections official.

Ohio election law 3513.31(F) says, “If a person nominated by petition as an independent withdraws, the vacancy so created may be filled by a majority of the committee of five, as designated on the candidate’s nominating petition.”

On August 9, the Reform Party National Committee facebook page announced that Rocky De La Fuente is the party’s nominee for President. The party had held a national convention in Bohemia, New York, on July 29. The delegates met the candidates but did not at that time make a selection. The selection was made a few days ago by e-mail. Only the delegates who had shown up on July 29 were permitted to vote. Rocky’s vice-presidential nominee is Michael Steinberg.

The Reform Party is on the ballot in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, although the Mississippi Reform Party, headed by Shawn O’Hara, makes its own decisions regardless of what the national party does. Thanks to a commenter at Independent Political Report for the news.