On April 8, 2008, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Montana’s new March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidate deadlines. The case was filed on behalf of Steve Kelly, independent candidate for U.S. Senate this year.

No hearing was held until September 18, 2008, when a hearing was held on Kelly’s request for injunctive relief. As of October 9, three weeks later, U.S. District Court Judge Sam Haddon has still not ruled on the request for injunctive relief. In the meantime, though, on September 30, he denied injunctive relief for another independent candidate for U.S. Senate who had not filed her case until August 27. That candidate, Patty Lovaas, had run in this year’s June Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Judge Haddon denied her request for relief on the basis that she could not be an independent candidate because a Montana law bars independent candidates who have been associated with a political party.

On October 8, a status conference was held in Libertarian Party of Connecticut v Bysiewicz, the case to get Bob Barr on the ballot. The judge wants to see copies of all the petitions, and so photocopying is going on as quickly as possible. The issue is whether there really are 7,500 valid signatures for Barr.

On October 7, the Ralph Nader campaign announced the opening of campaign offices in these cities:

1. California: Berkeley, Fresno, Los Angeles, and Sacramento
2. Illinois: Chicago
3. Maine: Portland
4. New York: Syracuse
5. Michigan: Lansing

Very soon, additional openings will occur in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, as well as other states. There should be 22 offices open by October 11. The www.votenader.org website should list all the offices by the end of the day on October 8.