A U.S. District Court will hear Erard v Michigan Secretary of State on December 23. This is a case filed by the Michigan Socialist Party in 2012, arguing that the number of signatures required to get a party on the Michigan ballot is unconstitutional. The number of signatures needed for a new party is 1% of the last gubernatorial vote. But the number of votes needed for a party to remain on the ballot is a smaller number, 1% of the winning candidate for Secretary of State’s vote.

For the 2014 election, 32,261 signatures are needed. Yet in 2012, a party that was already on the ballot only needed 16,803 votes for any statewide race in order to remain on. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1968, in Williams v Rhodes, ruled that it is unconstitutional for a state to require more support for a new party to get on, than for an old party to stay on. In that case, Ohio required a petition of 15% of the last gubernatorial vote for a new party to get on, but 10% vote in the last election for a party to remain on.

Michigan and Kansas are the only states with numerical requirements for a party to get on and to stay on, and in which the number to get on is larger than the number to stay on.

The November 22 Daily Advertiser, the daily newspaper for Montgomery, has this editorial, again criticizing the state’s restrictive ballot access law that was passed in 1995.

On November 21, the Federal Election Commission voted 3-2 to deny an exemption to the Tea Party Leadership Fund. The group wanted to be exempt from revealing the names of individuals who donate, and had submitted 1,400 pages of evidence to show that when individuals are publicly identified as supporting the Tea Party, they are harassed. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news.