On April 22, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed SB 1466. It makes three ballot access improvements. For a newly-qualifying party that just wants to be on the ballot in a single county, the petition is lowered from 5% to 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote. The vote test for a county party to remain on the ballot is lowered from 20% to 5%.

Finally, in a special election, a newly-qualifying party can get on with a petition of 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote within that district. Previously, there was nothing a new party could do to get on the ballot in a special election. This new procedure is wildly impractical, because generally in special elections, the time to collect signatures is short. A special U.S. House election would require the collection of approximately 4,500 valid signatures. This change in the law was caused by the Libertarian Party lawsuit last year concerning a special legislative election, in which a U.S. District Court put the Libertarian Party on the ballot in that special election.

On April 24, former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann announced he will seek the gubernatorial nomination of the Independent Party. See the campaign web page here. The announcement was no surprise, because Hannemann helped create the Independent Party earlier this year and got it on the ballot.

On April 24, a few hours after the oral argument, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that ballot-qualified parties that have been nominating by convention need not get permission from the electorate to continue nominating by convention. Here is the 4-page decision in South Carolina Libertarian Party v South Carolina State Election Commission, 2014-000775.

The decision also says that SB 2 from 2013 is in force. That bill says that parties that nominate by primary can’t switch to convention nominations unless they first ask their primary voters for permission to do that. The validity of that bill was questioned in the lawsuit, because the bill said that it would not take effect unless the U.S. Justice Department pre-cleared it, and yet the U.S. Justice Department did not pre-clear it. The reason the bill was never pre-cleared is that, a few weeks after it was signed into law in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County, Alabama v Holder that the pre-clearance formula is unconstitutional.

The Libertarian Party filed this lawsuit to clear up the ambiguity in the law, and now has the assurance that its convention nominations this year and in future years are valid methods for nominating candidates.