On August 28, the Alabama Secretary of State determined that three independent presidential petitions have enough valid signatures: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chase Oliver, and Jill Stein. Thanks to Darryl Perry for this news.
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On August 27, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued new temporary rules that will speed election law cases for the next few weeks. See it here.
Pennsylvania and New York are the two states with the most unresolved presidential ballot access issues.
On August 29 the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted not to let Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., withdraw from the ballot as the presidential nominee of the We the People Party.
On August 29, the Georgia Secretary of State overruled the administrative law judge as to Claudia De la Cruz’ ballot access. She is the nominee of the Party for Socialism & Liberation. The administrative law judge had said that petitioning candidates for president need a separate petition for each candidate for presidential elector. But the Secretary of State said that can’t be right, because in 2016 a federal judge had struck down the state’s ballot access petition requirement and had said that the new requirement will be 7,500 signatures. Forcing a petitioning presidential candidate to submit a separate petition for presidential elector, each with 7,500 signatures, would violate what the federal court had set as the state’s new interim law.
So far the Secretary of State has not ruled on the petitions for the other candidates, but it seems clear that the same logic will apply as well to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Cornel West. The issues for Jill Stein are somewhat different. So far there is no ruling from the Secretary of State for her.
UPDATE: the Secretary of State has also ruled in favor of Cornel West and Jill Stein. However Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not be on the ballot. As to Jill Stein, the Secretary of State accepted the Unified Green Party as the relevant party, instead of the Green Party. As has been reported before, there is a factional split in the Greens in Georgia and the objectors tried to exploit that.
The West Virginia Secretary of State has determined that the Constitution Party’s gubernatorial petition has enough valid signatures. S. Marshall Wilson, a former Republican state legislator, is the Constitution Party’s nominee for Governor. He is well-known and considered likely to poll more than 1% of the vote. If he does, the Constitution Party will be a ballot-qualified party in West Virginia for the first time ever.
The party circulated its gubernatorial petition before it knew who it was running for president, so the petition named no one for president, and the party’s presidential nominee, Randall Terry, won’t be on the ballot this year. Back in 1995, the West Virginia Secretary of State ruled that praties can use stand-in presidential candidates on their statewide petitions, but the Constitution Party didn’t take advantage of that idea this year. Thanks to Jeff Becker for the news about the Wilson petition acceptance.