On May 25, John Wolfe, Jr., filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Arkansas Democratic Party for refusing to let him choose any delegates to the Democratic national convention. Wolfe polled 42% of the vote in the May 22 presidential primary, with President Obama polling the other 58%. Under the state party rules, he should be entitled to some delegates. But the state party says he should have chosen candidates for delegate before the primary. The case is Wolfe v Arkansas Democratic Party, 4:12cv-314. It was assigned to Judge James M. Moody, a Clinton appointee.

Wolfe is serving as his own attorney, and he says he plans to sue the Louisiana Democratic Party also, in the near future. He got enough popular votes in the Louisiana primary to receive some delegates, but the Louisiana Democratic Party also refuses to let him have any delegates. See this story. Thanks to Andy Hogue for the link.

Current Ohio law requires all ballot-qualified parties to certify the names of their presidential and vice-presidential nominees no later than August 8. The Democratic and Republican Parties will not hold their national conventions until several weeks after that date. HB 509 had been expected to pass the Senate on May 24. It says those two parties (but no others) may have until September 7 to make the certifications. The bill has an urgency clause and only pertains to the 2012 election.

For some reason, on May 24, the Ohio Senate decided not to vote on this bill that day. The Senate won’t be in session again until June 5. Assuming the bill passes the Senate on June 5, then it must pass the House. The original bill that already passed the House did not have the election law amendment, so the House needs to re-approve the entire bill after it passes the Senate. The original bill is not an election law bill and concerns venereal disease and other unrelated subjects.

On May 25, the Green Party and the Constitution Party filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Georgia’s procedure for placing newly-qualifying parties on the ballot for President. The case is Green Party of Georgia v State of Georgia and Brian Kemp, 1:12-cv-1822, northern district.

Georgia requires a petition of 50,334 valid signatures and requires each sheet to be notarized. No statewide petition for either a newly-qualifying party or a statewide independent candidate has succeeded in Georgia since 2000. In 1985 the 11th circuit ruled in Bergland v Harris that states must be more lenient on ballot access for president than for other office, and that Jenness v Fortson doesn’t necessarily apply to presidential candidate procedures. Georgia is in the 11th circuit.

There is now a constitutional ballot access case underway in all of the states with the worst ballot access procedures, except for Indiana and Texas. Cases are pending in Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. All of these cases are being handled by attorneys who are not charging for their services. The ballot access movement owes a huge debt of gratitude to these attorneys, who include Dan Johnson of Illinois, David Sapp of the Southern California ACLU, Mike Raffauf of Georgia, Roberta Price and David Urias of New Mexico, Gary Sinawski of New York, Bob Bastress of West Virginia, Jason Huber of North Carolina, Mark Brown of Ohio, Alan Woodruff of Tennessee, and Oliver Hall of Washington, D.C.

There are other constitutional ballot access pending in states not named above. The list above is not intended to be a complete list of such cases, but rather to highlight the cases against the most restrictive states. Six states are responsible for 60% of the total national number of signatures needed to place a new party or independent presidential candidate on the ballot in the entire nation (this calculation uses the easier method to get on the ballot in each state). Progress against those six states will do much to help voters of the entire United States. Those six states are California, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia, and Indiana.