Earlier this year, the Ohio legislature passed SB 47, which, among other things, said that independent candidates must complete their petitions within one year. They can start as early as they wish, but they must finish up no later than one year after they start.

On November 18, Richard Duncan, who was an independent candidate for President in Ohio in both 2008 and 2012, filed a lawsuit against that law. Ohio requires 5,000 valid signatures for a statewide independent. Both times he ran, he collected all his own signatures, so he took several years to complete his petitions. He was the only presidential independent candidate who got on the ballot in Ohio in 2012, so one wonders why the Ohio legislature passed this restriction, which almost seems aimed at Duncan. He got 12,557 votes for president in Ohio in 2012, and he was not on the ballot in any other state. The lawsuit is Duncan v Husted, 2:13cv-1157, southern district. The case was assigned to Judge Algenon Marbley.

Patrick Caldwell has this article in Mother Jones on the upcoming recount for Virginia Attorney General. The article says that Bush v Gore may influence the proceedings. The article also says that the Sixth Circuit is the only circuit that has used Bush v Gore. Actually, the Ninth Circuit also used it to settle an election dispute in the Northern Mariana Islands, in 2001, in Charfauros v Board of Elections.

On November 20, former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman spoke a Roanoke College. Among other things, he said emergence of a strong new political party would be beneficial to the United States, even if it wasn’t strong enough to win. See this story.