On April 24, Democratic congressional candidate Bruce Shuttleworth, who had been challenging Virginia’s ban on out-of-state circulators, altered his lawsuit. He is no longer challenging the state ban. However, he is maintaining his lawsuit against certain officials of the Democratic Party of Virginia, over the handling of his petition to get on the primary ballot this year. The case is Shuttleworth v Moran, eastern district, 3:12-cv-257.

He had originally been told he didn’t have enough valid signatures, partly because he used a resident of the District of Columbia to circulate some of his signatures. Then he filed a lawsuit, challenging that ban. Then the Democratic Party said it had found some more valid signatures, and put him on the ballot.

This is the second lawsuit in a row in which a plaintiff challenged the Virginia ban on out-of-state circulators, and then dropped the lawsuit on that point. The first was the lawsuit filed by several Republican presidential primary candidates late last year.

According to this story in The Hill, Ron Paul has more delegates in Minnesota than any other Republican presidential candidate, and will likely have a majority of the delegation. Paul also seems to have exactly half of the Iowa delegation.

Both states depend on caucuses (not presidential primaries), and the process of determining the final delegation takes months of successive rounds of conventions at various levels.

On April 24, 1980, John B. Anderson declared that he would seek the presidency as an independent candidate. He subsequently placed his name on the ballot in all 50 states in November, even though he had already had his name on the ballot, or was about to have his name on the ballot, in two-thirds of the Republican presidential primaries of 1980.

This anniversary, exactly 32 years ago today, shows that candidates can enter the general election for president relatively late in the season, and can get on the ballot in all states. When Anderson declared, the case law regarding deadlines for independent presidential petitions was not nearly as good as it is today.