The Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office has finished checking petitions for presidential primary candidates. Twelve Republicans and four Democrats submitted at least 1,000 valid signatures, and will be on ballots.

The four Democrats are Hillary Clinton, Rocky De La Fuente, Bernie Sanders, and Mark Stewart.

The twelve Republicans are Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, and Donald Trump. Never before had more than seven Republicans appeared on a Rhode Island presidential primary ballot. Although some of these candidates have withdrawn from the race, they were still running on the date they submitted petitions, so they will be on the ballot.

On February 17, the Maine Secretary of State filed this response in the Libertarian Party’s ballot access case. The case challenges the December 1, 2015 deadline for a group to qualify as a party. The state says that the early deadline is needed for proper election administration, even though the primary is not until June 2016.

The state says that early deadlines are constitutional if the petition or registration drive hurdle is easy, and then says that getting 5,000 voters to join the party on voter registration forms is easy. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Anderson v Celebrezze the early deadlines are unconstitutional, regardless of how easy or difficult the procedure is. In Anderson v Celebrezze, John Anderson only needed 5,000 signatures, which was only about one-tenth of 1% of the last presidential vote cast. But the March 20 deadline was still unconstitutional.

On February 16, the Independent Party filed a federal lawsuit against the California Secretary of State, over the state’s refusal to recognize the Independent Party as a political body. In California, a group becomes a qualified party by persuading approximately 60,000 voters to register into it. The exact percentage is .33% of the number of registered voters. The case is Independent Party v Padilla, eastern district, 2:16cv-316.

When a group desires to qualify, it files for “Political Body” status. Then the Secretary of State directs county election officials to tally up the number of people who register into that party. The law permits a new political body to ask that persons who registered into that party in the past, and who are still registered with it, to be counted.

The Independent Party filed for political body status in March 2015, but the Secretary of State refused to list it as a political body, on the grounds that the name is too similar to the name of the already-qualified American Independent Party. However, the previous Secretary of State allowed Americans Elect to become a qualified party in 2011, even though the American Independent Party was already on the ballot. Also the current Secretary of State has allowed the American Freedom Party to file as a political body. In 1896 the California Supreme Court ruled in Craig v Brown that the National Democratic Party had a right to get on the ballot, even though the Democratic Party was already on the ballot. In 1912 California permitted the Socialist Labor Party to be on the ballot in one Assembly district, even though the Socialist Party was already on the ballot. Also the current Secretary of State has allowed two different political bodies to file recently, even though they both share a word in common. They are the California National Party and the Independent California Party.

Parties named “Independent Party” are on the ballot in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, and Oregon. Independent Parties were also on the ballot in the recent past in Arkansas, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah.