On July 10, the United Kansas Party filed two lawsuits in state court to force the state to allow two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate.  The link goes to the Complaint in one of the cases, United Kansas Party v Schwab, Saline County, 28th judicial district, sa-2024-cv-152.  The two cases are identical; each one has one particular candidate-plaintiff.  The other case, also called United Kanss Party v Schwab, is filed in Reno County, rn-2024-cv-184.

The party has nominated two candidates for the legislature who were also running in major party primaries on August 6, and who each won their major party primary:  Lori Blake is the Democratic nominee in the 69th district, and Jason Probst is the Democratic nominee in the 102nd district.  They each want to be on the ballot with both party labels, Democrat and United Kansas.

The United Kansas gained qualified status in Kansas in May 2024, and the founders of the party always had the goal of legalizing fusion.  The lawsuits depend on the State Constitution.  The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires states to permit fusion.

The United Kansas Party had also nominated J.C. Moore to run for State Senate in the 26th district, but he lost his Republican primary on August 6.

On Saturday, August 3, the Peace & Freedom Party nominated Claudia De La Cruz for president.  She had won their presidential primary in March 2024.

The presumptive Democratic Party nominee for vice-president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has a record of hostility toward minor parties and the voters who want to vote for minor parties.  On May 23, 2023, he signed HF 1830.  It altered the Minnesota definition of a qualified party from a group that polled 5% at either of the last elections, to one that polled 8% at either of the last two elections.

That made Minnesota the fifth-most difficult state in the nation for a minor party to retain its spot on the ballot.  The only states with a worse vote test for party status are Alabama (20%), Virginia (10%), and New Jersey (10%).  Also Pennsylvania’s registration test of 15% is worse than any other state’s test.

The Democratic majority in Minnesota wrote SF 1830 in order to eliminate the Legal Marijuana Now Party from the ballot.  After it was pointed out to them that it violates constitutional due process to make the definition of a party effective immediately, the bill was amended to not apply until 2026.  But then this year the Democratic Party challenged the status of the Legal Marijuana Now Party in state court, and the State Supreme Court removed it, on the grounds that it had the wrong type of structure.

HB 1830 also says votes for declared write-in candidates will no longer be counted, in most cases.

None of the other Democratic politicians who had been under consideration for the vice-presidential nomination are known to have ever harmed ballot access in their own state.