On June 16, a lawsuit was filed in Michigan state court against SB 776, which was passed recently and limits the circulation period for initiatives to 180 days. Michigan Comprehensive Cannabis Law Reform Committee v Johnson, Lansing, 16-131-MM. The plaintiff needed 252,523 valid signatures, and gathered approximately 354,000. However 137,000 signatures were considered invalid because they had been collected before the start period for this initiative.

The bill setting the 180-day limit had been introduced February 10, 2016, and wasn’t passed until May 18. It was signed into law on June 6, long after the sponsors had been working on this initiative. Before the bill was passed into law, the Secretary of State had an administrative requirement that signatures be collected within 180 days, which had been enforced starting in 1986.

The lawsuit charges that (1) the bill can’t go into effect immediately because it didn’t pass with two-thirds in each house of the legislature: (2) the bill violates the State Constitution, which seems to say that initiatives can be collected over a period of three and one-half years; (3) the law violates the U.S. Constitution. There are other issues raised by the Complaint as well. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the information about the lawsuit.

On May 16, 2016, Rocky De La Fuente, an independent presidential candidate, sued North Carolina over the requirement that independent presidential candidates must submit 89,366 valid signatures by June 9. The requirement is 2% of the last gubernatorial vote. De La Fuente v Amoroso, 1:16cv-470, middle district. On June 15, his Complaint was amended. The original filing had sued the wrong Defendant.

The case is assigned to Judge Thomas D. Schroeder, a Bush Jr. appointee. This is the first lawsuit to challenge the North Carolina 2% petition requirement for an independent presidential candidate. Only once in history has any independent candidate successfully met the requirement. Ross Perot in 1992 is the only independent presidential candidate who ever succeeded in getting on the ballot, in the entire history of North Carolina government-printed ballots. Back when Perot did it in 1992, it was even worse; it was 2% of the total number of registered voters.

The lawsuit will depend partly on the March 2016 U.S. District Court decision from Georgia that struck down a petition of approximately 50,000 signatures for independent presidential candidates and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties.

The Nevada Green Party is monitoring Clark County election officials, as the party’s petition is checked for validity. The party needs 5,431 valid signatures and submitted approximately 8,500. Clark County, which has over half the state’s population, did a random sample of the signatures, which was indeterminate. So now all the party’s signatures in that county are being reviewed.