On May 15, the Alabama Secretary of State determined that the Americans Elect petition has enough valid signatures. Americans Elect is the first statewide petition in that state (whether newly-qualifying party or statewide independent candidate) to have completed a petition successfully since the Libertarians did it in 2000. That statement does not make reference to independent candidates for president, who only need one-ninth as many signatures as the other statewide petitions.

Americans Elect’s Board will meet on Thursday morning, May 17, to decide what happens next. It is somewhat plausible that the qualifying deadlines for candidates seeking a place on the Americans Elect primary ballot will be moved to a later date. Americans Elect petition drives that are underway, including the difficult Texas petition, are continuing in the meantime.

On May 15, Michele Petty, a candidate for Texas Supreme Court, place 6, filed a lawsuit in state court, seeking to keep her only opponent off the Republican primary ballot for that office. Petty is the only Democrat running. She wants the petition for Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht declared invalid, which would prevent him from appearing on the Republican primary ballot. Thus, he could not run for re-election, because Texas does not permit write-ins in primaries. The lawsuit is Petty v Texas Republican Party.

Here is the complaint. Texas does not normally require petitions for candidates to get on primary ballots, but candidates for partisan statewide judicial offices do need a petition. Such petitions need 50 signatures from each of the 14 state judicial appellate districts. The complaint charges that the petition for the Fort Worth area district did not fill in three blanks at the top of the form. Each petition has a statement in both English and Spanish. Both the English-language sentence, and the Spanish-language sentence, contains blanks. The blanks are to be filled in by the candidate’s name and the name of the office being sought. Judge Hecht’s petition for the Fort Worth district didn’t fill in the blanks in the Spanish part of the form.

Texas courts have usually not enforced ultra-strict compliance with such technicalities.

The Americans Elect web page has this statement, posted the morning of May 15. It says the organization will make a more important announcement in two days, about how it plans to proceed.