On July 5, the Cornel West independent presidential campaign submitted 29,000 signatures to the Georgia Secretary of State. The legal requirement is 7,500.

Georgia election officials customarily do a very poor job of checking signatures. The validity is invariably low because the various county election offices don’t have clear guidance from the state. No one has got on the Georgia ballot by petition since 2000. Furthermore, Georgia has a law that an entire sheet is invalid if it contains even one signature with an address that is not in the county for which that petition is for.

Other groups submitting a presidential petition in Georgia this year are the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. campaign and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

The Libertarian Party is now ballot-qualified for all statewide office. The Green Party is on for president because under the new law, it is on for president because it is also on in at least 20 other states or territories.

The United Kingdom held a House of Commons election on July 4. This wikipedia article shows that 12 parties won at least one seat. Scroll down quite a ways. One seat is still not decided as of Friday morning.

The English-Welsh Green Party won four seats, up from just one. The only reason this blog post singles out the Green Party is that there is an equivalent party in the United States.

British ballot access is equal and lenient. Candidates for House of Commons get on the ballot with 500 pounds and ten signatures. Great Britain does not suffer from crowded ballots. The typical district has fewer than eight candidates on the ballot.

On July 3, the Second Circuit issued an opinion in Upstate Jobs Party v Kosinski, 21-2518.  It upholds New York campaign finance laws that allow qualified parties to make unlimited contributions to their own nominees in the general election, but does not permit unqualified parties to do the same.  The decision also upholds New York laws that allow individuals to contribute twice as much money to the nominee of a qualified party as to the nominee of an unqualified party.

Here is the opinion.  It is authored by Judge Debra Ann Livingston, a Bush Jr. appointee.  It is also signed by Judge Reena Raggi, a Bush Jr. appointee; and William J. Nardini, a Trump appointee.

The case had been filed in 2018 by the Upstate Jobs Party, which has never been a qualified party.  It can’t ever be a qualified party because its policy is not to run for statewide office.  Because New York law defines a party as a group that polled a certain share of the vote for President or Governor, it can never qualify.  When the lawsuit was filed, the definition of a party was substantially easier than it is now, but the panel did not mention that point.