This story in the Daily Report, Atlanta’s legal news newspaper, carries reaction from various Georgia public officials about the March 17 decision striking down Georgia’s petition requirement for minor party and independent presidential candidates.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp said, “I have already been in discussion with the attorney general’s office regarding our legal options moving forward. Practically speaking, I do not foresee any issues implementing Judge Story’s ruling this election cycle. This order only affects presidential candidates. It does not affect other candidates seeking public office this year.”

A spokesman for Speaker of the House David Ralston said “no one can recall anyone reaching out to the speaker or his staff regarding ballot access.”
That is very surprising, because there is a bill pending now to ease Georgia ballot access, HB 58. It was introduced in 2015 and has not made any headway. Ironically, Ralston himself, before he was Speaker, was a co-sponsor of an earlier bill to ease ballot access. Thanks to David Gillespie for the link.

The briefs in Libertarian Party of Kentucky v Grimes, e.d., 3:15cv-86, are due by April 7. The case is being expedited. The issue is whether the state’s definition of “political party” is too restrictive. In the last 100 years, only four groups, besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, have qualified for party status in Kentucky: the Progressive Party 1924-1928, the American Party 1968-1972, the Anderson Coalition Party 1980-1984, and the Reform Party 1996-2000. The definition is a group that polls at least 2% for President in Kentucky.

Kentucky and Washington state are the only two states in which it is impossible for a group to become a qualified party unless it makes a certain showing in a presidential election. The plaintiffs are the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party.

The Independent Party is entitled to its own presidential primary in Oregon. This is the first time Oregon has ever held a presidential primary for a party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, except it is possible Oregon held one for the Progressive Party in 1916.

On March 16, the Oregon Attorney General ruled that the Independent Party ballot will not have any presidential candidates’ names. But there will be a presidential primary ballot for the party, and all write-ins will be tallied. Because the Independent Party is the only party that allows independents to vote in its primary, and because the Independent Party itself has over 110,000 registered members, there will almost certainly be tens of thousands of write-ins to count.

The Independent Party wanted the Secretary of State to list all the presidential candidates whose names are on the Democratic and Republican ballots, and Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Michael Bloomberg as well. But the Oregon law says that candidates should be on presidential primary ballots automatically only if newspapers mention their candidacies for a particular party. Because there are no newspaper stories that say any of those presidential candidates are seeking the Independent Party nomination, the state won’t list those candidates.

State officials also say that the presidential candidate who gets the most write-in votes will be the Independent Party’s nominee in November, regardless of the wishes of the state party officers. This part of the ruling seems contrary to law, and it is not known if the Independent Party will accept that ruling or not.