On July 1, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called a special election to fill the empty U.S. House seat of Anthony Weiner. New York law requires 3,500 valid signatures to place an independent candidate, or the nominee of an unqualified party, on the ballot. In special elections, that same number of signatures is required, even though typically only 12 days are permitted to get those signatures. In the upcoming election, those signatures are due July 13.

Courts in several other states have ruled that when the normal petitioning period is shorter than usual, the state must reduce the number of signatures proportionately, or else must provide more time. Lawsuits like this have won in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and Wyoming. A lawsuit on this subject is pending in California Superior Court in Sacramento County. The California lawsuit was brought by a Peace & Freedom Party candidate in a special election earlier this year. Unfortunately, the attorney who brought the lawsuit was forced to resign from the case after his new employer told him he could not continue to work on the case, and the Peace & Freedom Party candidate, Daniel Frederick, has not yet found a replacement. The court has given him several months to find a new attorney.

On July 1, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed HB 194. This is an omnibus election law bill that, among other things, purports to give Ohio a ballot access law for minor parties that complies with the 2006 decision of the 6th circuit in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Blackwell. It sets a petition deadline of early February, the same deadline that was held unconstitutional in Williams v Rhodes by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968. The Supreme Court said an early February deadline is “unreasonably early.” However, it is true that the new Ohio deadline is better than the old one of November of the year before the election.

The next step will be for the Secretary of State to decide whether the four minor parties that were ballot-qualified in 2008 and 2010 (Constitution, Green, Libertarian and Socialist) may remain on the 2012 ballot. Former Secretary of State Ted Brown, in analogous circumstances, left parties on the ballot in 1970 and 1972.

Americans Elect posts its national signature total (on ballot access petitions for itself) weekly. The total posted on July 6 is 1,501,174, which is an increase of slightly more than 70,000 since June 30. It is believed all the new signatures are from California.