Arizona’s Secretary of State lists these 48 presidential primary candidates who will be on the Democratic and Republican ballots in February. There are 24 Republicans and 24 Democrats. Anyone can run by filing a declaration of candidacy.

The reason the law is so lenient is that, as written by the legislature, only people entitled to primary season matching funds were permitted to be on a presidential primary ballot. When Steve Forbes ran for president in 1996, he didn’t apply for primary season matching funds. The Arizona Attorney General ruled that Arizona’s presidential primary ballot access law was unconstitutional, in response to Forbes’ demand for relief. In all the years since, the legislature has never bothered to write a new law. So, in the interim, anyone may run just by asking.

Meanwhile, Arizona general election ballot access laws are so severe, only three presidential candidates appeared on the November 2004 ballot.

On December 11, the 10th circuit refused to rehear Libertarian Party of New Mexico v Herrera, the ballot access lawsuit filed in 2006. The issue was whether the U.S. District Court should have heard the party’s evidence.

The 10th circuit did re-write its opinion slightly. The November 7, 2007 opinion had said on page 12, “Affidavits from other similarly situated minor parties, such as the Green Party, were not obtained to prove the burden imposed.” The new opinion changes “prove the burden” to “establish the character and magnitude of the injury”. Also, on page 14, the old opinion had said, “Without evidence to prove the burden of New Mexico law is severe as to minor party candidates, there was no genuine issue of material fact”; the new opinion says, “Without any evidence to prove that the New Mexico ballot-access law is unconstitutionally burdensome to minor party candidates, there was no genuine issue of material fact.”

It is Orwellian of the 10th circuit to criticize the Libertarian Party for failing to provide evidence, since the party had planned to introduce the evidence at the trial. However, the U.S. District Court had cancelled the trial, with only one business day’s warning to the witnesses and the attorneys, and thus the party was unable to present the extensive evidence it had planned to present.

The ACLU, which brought this lawsuit, might ask for U.S. Supreme Court review, or it might file an entirely new lawsuit focused on the 2008 election. That lawsuit could perhaps be filed on behalf of both the Libertarian and Green Parties, but could not be filed until these parties hold nominating conventions and nominate candidates (for office other than president). Those two parties are on automatically for president, but not other office.

According to this story in the Palm Beach Post, the District Attorney of Palm Beach County, Florida, does not believe that any Florida law was broken by 17 voters who appear to have voted in both Florida and New York, in the November 2006 election.

The conclusion probably wouldn’t be any different if 2006 had been a presidential election year, either. Technically, someone voting for president in two different states in the same presidential election would not be voting “twice” for any office. This is because voters in November of presidential election years are not voting for president. They are voting for candidates for presidential elector. Of course, each state is conducting a separate election for that office. So, the voter would not be voting twice for any particular office.