On August 3, the Idaho Secretary of State wrote a letter to Darrell Castle, saying the office believes he is circulating an independent presidential petition, and warning him that if he submits the required 1,000 signatures by the August 24 deadline, the office will reject it because sec. 34-708A says that independent presidential candidates must declare that they have no political party affiliation. This law has existed since 1977, and yet always before it has been interpreted to refer to political party affiliation for Idaho parties, not national parties or parties in other states.

On August 10, Castle responded with this letter. Castle notes that John Anderson was permitted to be on the Idaho ballot as an independent in 1980, even though Anderson continued to list himself as a Republican in his Congressional Directory page all during 1980. Castle notes that Idaho let Jill Stein be an independent presidential candidate in 2012, even though at the time, and currently, she is a registered Green in Massachusetts. Castle noted that Idaho let Rocky Anderson be an independent presidential candidate while he was a registered Justice Party member in Utah.

Finally, Castle notes that he himself is not a registered member of the Constitution Party, because he lives in Tennessee, which does not have registration by party. Also the Constitution Party does not have dues-paying membership.

The reason Castle has been circulating an independent petition in Idaho is because the ballot-qualified Constitution Party in Idaho is lead by individuals who are angry with the national Constitution Party, so they won’t put Castle on as the party nominee.

The Arkansas Secretary of State has determined that Better for America has enough signatures on its petition to be a party, for purposes of the presidential election. Better for America has not formally nominated any presidential candidate yet, but it expected to nominate Evan McMullin.

On August 9, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Hornak, an Obama appointee, enjoined a Pennsylvania law barring out-of-state circulators, as applied to a particular referendum petition. OpenPittsburgh.Org v Wolosik, w.d., 2:16cv-1075. The specific law enjoined is P.S. 2869(a), which also covers the ban as applied to petitions to get on a primary ballot. That is a different statute than the statute banning out-of-state circulators for minor party and independent candidate petitions, which had already been invalidated.

The defendant had complained that the case had been filed too late. It was filed July 22, 2016. But the judge said that if the case had been filed sooner, then the government would have argued that there wasn’t enough evidence yet of harm. The proponents of the referendum petition were able to show that the ban on out-of-state circulators was threatening their ability to complete the petition drive.

Here is a link to the referendum petition’s proponents, explaining the purpose of the referendum.