On August 8, two attorneys working for various Republican Party officials filed challenges to the validity of the Libertarian Party statewide petition and the Constitution Party statewide petition. No challenge was filed against the statewide Green Party petition.

Fortunately, also on August 8, Oliver Hall filed a request for injunctive relief in federal court against the Pennsylvania challenge system. That case, which was filed on May 17, 2012, is called Constitution Party v Aichele, eastern district, 5:12-cv-2726. Here is the filing. Here are the exhibits that accompany that filing. Oliver Hall is the attorney for the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian Parties in that case. A previous case filed in 2009 had resulted in a decision that the plaintiffs lack standing. In this instance, it appears logically impossible that anyone could think the Libertarian Party, or the Constitution Party, now lack standing. Without relief from the federal court, the Libertarian and Constitution Parties are placed in the dilemma of either withdrawing their petitions, or risking a judgment that court costs of perhaps $100,000 or more are owed to the challengers.

One of the attorneys who filed the challenge to the Libertarian and Constitution Parties is the same attorney who challenged the minor party statewide petitions in 2010, and who warned the parties that court costs might be as high as $110,000. In 2010 all the statewide minor party petitions were then withdrawn and no one ever determined whether they had enough valid signatures or not.

The Connecticut petition deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, is August 8. It appears that the only presidential petition likely to succeed in Connecticut is the Libertarian Party petition. The state requires 7,500 valid signatures. The Green Party made a valiant attempt, but seems to only have 7,000 signatures in hand.

The FEC has still not approved the Jill Stein matching funds application, although that approval is expected soon. The Independent Party of Connecticut is ballot-qualified for president, and has the freedom to nominate a presidential candidate. There is some indication that the Independent Party of Connecticut is leaning toward nominating Rocky Anderson.

The Constitution Party did not attempt a Connecticut petition. Petitioning in all the New England states is intrinsically more burdensome than it is in the remainder of the country. The New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut are the only states that require petitions to be transported to various town clerks, then collected, then taken to the Secretary of State’s office. Because federal law requires all state election offices to have their own statewide voter registration list, there is no rational reason for these cumbersome procedures to survive.

Although the South has the nation’s worst ballot access laws, New England is the second-worst region for ballot access. Massachusetts and Maine have the nation’s most restrictive laws on how a candidate gets on the primary ballot of a small ballot-qualified party. Maine has the nation’s most burdensome procedure for a new party to qualify by petition (the requirement is 5% of the last vote cast, and no one who is a registered member of a qualified party may sign). Vermont is tied for having the nation’s earliest petition deadline for independent presidential candidates. New Hampshire is the only state that requires an unqualified party to notify the state of its presidential nominee in June. Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire don’t permit presidential stand-ins on petitions. Many of these laws should have long ago been held unconstitutional, but the federal judges in the First Circuit seem markedly biased against minor parties.