On November 2, a U.S. District Court Judge in Montana ordered both sides to submit briefs in Kelly v Johnson, the case over Montana’s March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates. Both sides will file simultaneously, on November 25. Then, each side will respond to the other side’s brief on December 9.

This case had been filed in 2008 by Steve Kelly, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. In 2007 the Montana legislature had moved the petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates from June to March. The Montana primary is in June. The U.S. District Court had ruled on February 3, 2010, that plaintiffs lack standing, but the 9th circuit had reversed that conclusion on December 10, 2010, and sent the case back to U.S. District Court for a ruling on the merits.

On November 14, the U.S. government filed this response in Bluman v Federal Election Commission in the U.S. Supreme Court. The response defends the federal law that does not permit resident aliens to donate money to candidates for any public office if that resident alien is not admitted permanently. The brief discusses instances when foreign governments have attempted to influence U.S. elections through its own citizens who were residing in the U.S. at the time. Examples include Germany in 1935, China in the 1990’s, and Libya.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet decided whether or not to hear this case. The lower court had upheld the law. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for the link.

Ever since 1999, Florida has had extremely easy procedures for parties to become ballot-qualified. All they had to do was file a list of state officers and bylaws. Under a bill passed in 2011, however, parties must have at least three officers, and they must all be registered members of their own party. This story predicts that these requirements will soon reduce the number of qualified parties to ten or so. The author lists the parties he expects to continue to exist, but for some reason he failed to include Americans Elect.