In all states except Pennsylvania, a presidential nominee of a qualified party need not file any documents himself or herself to get on the November ballot. Instead, presidential nominees of qualified parties get on the general election ballot automatically. The state party officers send the names of that party’s presidential elector candidates to the state elections office, and the party’s certification also notifies the state of whom the electors are pledged to.
Challenges to former President Donald Trump this year, and last year, have been challenges to his appearance on presidential primary ballots. Generally, when a candidate must file some document, a state has a procedure for a voter to challenge that document based on the candidate’s eligibility. But there are no parallel laws by which a voter can challenge the certification document of a qualified party that names the elector candidates and reveals whom they are pledged to. Therefore, just because there is a state procedure to challenge someone’s appearance on a presidential primary ballot, it doesn’t follow that there is a procedure to challenge that same person’s general election ballot listing.
If the U.S. Supreme Court decides that the Colorado Supreme Court was correct to keep Trump off the March presidential primary ballot, based on Colorado state law on how primary candidates can be challenged, it doesn’t even follow that Trump (assuming he is the Republican nominee) can be kept off the November ballot in Colorado.
Of course, state legislatures could quickly pass bills that explicitly say a qualified party cannot submit any presidential elector candidates who say they are pledged to an ineligible presidential candidate. There is such a bill pending in the California legislature. Here is the text of SB 929, sponsored by State Senator David Min (D-Irvine).
There is also a Hawaii bill, SB 2392, by Senator Karl Rhoads (D-Honolulu). It has a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6.