On October 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th circuit, upheld North Carolina’s ballot access requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House. The law requires signatures equal to 4% of the number of registered voters, or approximately 20,000 valid signatures in the typical district. UPDATE: here is the opinion.

The decision is very short and is unsigned. It says there is no way to diferentiate North Carolina’s law from the Georgia law upheld in 1971 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Jenness v Fortson. Actually, that is not correct. In Jenness, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law because the plaintiff was running for statewide office, and the record showed that two statewide petitions had succeeded recently, one in 1966 by the Republican Party candidate for Governor, and one in 1968 by George Wallace.

By contrast, in North Carolina’s case, no independent for U.S. House has ever qualified, in the 110 years that the state has had government-printed ballots. The 4th circuit ignored three more recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions which say laws that are seldom used are probably unconstitutional.

In the last few days, Americans Elect has begun circulating the petition for party status in Montana, which requires 5,000 valid signatures. Americans Elect is also working to organize itself in Mississippi and Vermont, two states in which no petition is needed, if a group demonstrates that it has an organization in the state.

Also in Montana, the Constitution Party is working on the same type of petition. The only ballot-qualified parties currently in Montana are the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties.

On October 10, all three candidates for Governor of Kentucky debated each other. The three candidates include independent Gatewood Galbraith and the major party nominees. See this story. The election is November 8, 2011.