On June 6, the Montana Secretary of State filed a 7-page brief in U.S. District Court in Kelly v McCulloch, defending her decision, made on May 29, to set a May 29 petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates.

On Friday, late in the day, May 25, the U.S. District Court had invalidated the statutory March petition deadline. No one was aware of this decision until Tuesday morning, May 29 (May 28 was a holiday). The Secretary of State’s decision, saying, in effect, “OK, the new deadline will be today” obviously gave no potential independent candidate a chance to take advantage of the new deadline. Therefore, the plaintiffs then asked the Court to set an August 15 deadline instead.

The Secretary of State’s brief says that the plaintiffs’ brief cites no legal authority for its argument that what the Secretary of State decided on May 29 is invalid. However, the Secretary of State’s brief doesn’t cite any precedent arguing that what she did is valid. There are no precedents, because never before in history has any state made a decision like this. Early petition deadlines have been struck down, or enjoined, 51 times in the past. Never before did a state election official then set a new deadline that was impossible for anyone to meet. Generally, when a state loses a constitutional ballot access lawsuit, it tries to offer meaningful relief. For example, when the New Jersey April petition deadline was enjoined on July 21, 1997, the state accepted petitions until July 28, 1997.

Montana’s brief is also deceptive. It implies that the new deadline is in June, which is not true; the new deadline is May 29.

North Dakota holds its primary on June 12. North Dakota is an open primary state. In the secrecy of the voting booth, a voter decides which party’s primary to vote in.

Four qualified parties are printed on the June 12 ballots. As the picture in this article shows, the front of the ballot has the Democratic, Republican, and Constitution Parties. The Libertarian Party column is on the back of the ballot.

This is especially unfair because the Libertarian Party nominees for statewide office (other than President) cannot appear on the November ballot, unless at least 300 voters choose to vote in the Libertarian Party primary, and vote for the party’s unopposed nominees. Chances are most voters will vote in one of the major party primaries before they even notice that there is another party on the back, and by then it will be too late, because a voter can only vote in one party’s primary.

The Constitution Party doesn’t have any candidates on the primary ballot. It completed the petition to become a qualified party just so it would be on the November ballot for President, so one would think that since there are no Constitution Party nominees on the primary ballot, the Secretary of State, if he had to design the ballot that way, would have put the Constitution Party on the back, not the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party has primary candidates for U.S. House, Governor, and Public Service Commissioner.

Arizona will hold a primary on August 28 for five political parties to nominate candidates for Congress, state office, and partisan local office. Those five parties are Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, and Americans Elect.

Two candidates have filed for the Americans Elect primary, each of them running for a seat in Congress. Richard Grayson recently filed to be a declared write-in candidate in the U.S. House race, 4th district. Under Arizona law, assuming he is the only declared write-in candidate, he will win the Americans Elect nomination if he gets just a single write-in vote.

Grayson is apparently the second individual in the United States to seek an Americans Elect nomination for public office other than President. The first, who had already filed, is Stephen Dolgos, running in the 8th district for U.S. House in Arizona. Dolgos is not a write-in in the Americans Elect primary; he already qualified to have his name printed on the party’s primary ballot.