According to this story, the Connecticut legislature may suspend the public funding program for 2016. The Connecticut public funding law, passed in 2005, is the most unjust public funding law ever passed in any state. Nominees of parties that polled 20% for Governor in the preceding election easily qualify with a limited number of private campaign donations. But independent candidates, and the nominees of new parties, need a petition of 20% of the last vote cast, in addition to raising small private donations, to get equal public funding.

The U.S. District Court struck the law down, but the 2nd circuit restored it by 2-1, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

Most states don’t care how early an independent presidential candidate begins to circulate a petition. But some states do set a start date. These are believed to be the start dates for independent presidential petitioning:

California, April 29, 2016
Connecticut, Jan. 4, 2016
District of Columbia, March 25, 2016
Georgia, April 12, 2015
Illinois, March 29, 2016
Kentucky, November 4, 2015
Maine, January 1, 2016
Massachusetts, February 16, 2016
Minnesota, June 24, 2016
New Hampshire, January 4, 2016
New Mexico, March 1, 2016 (this is disputed)
New York, July 12, 2016
Pennsylvania, February 17, 2016
Rhode Island, June 29, 2016
South Dakota, January 1, 2016
Texas, March 2, 2016
Virginia, January 4, 2016
Washington, May 7, 2016

There is also Michigan, which doesn’t set a start date, but requires that the petition be completed in a six-month period of the candidate’s choosing; and Ohio, which also doesn’t set a start date but requires that the petition be completed in 12 months of the candidates’s own choosing.

The only states that don’t require a petition for independent presidential candidates are Colorado and Louisiana. Note that this post does not concern itself with start dates for petitions to recognize a new party. Fewer states have start dates for party petitions than for independent petitions. If anyone sees any error, please comment. Thank you.

Democratic presidential candidates debated each other on Saturday, November 14. According to this story, only 8,500,000 people watched. By contrast, the first two Republican debates had 20,000,000 viewers, and the third and fourth Republican debates had 13,000,000 viewers.

This suggests that debates get more viewers when more candidates participate. All of the mainstream Republican debates have had either ten or eight candidates, whereas the most recent Democratic debate had only three.