The website for the independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., now has a map, showing petitioning activity. See it here.
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On December 21, Orvis Campbell, the sheriff of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, said he has switched from being a Democrat to an independent. He will run for re-election as an independent. Ohio, like most states, has partisan elections for county executive offices.
He said he thinks he can perform his job better if he is an independent. He said recently he had trouble working with a crime victim because the victim said he was uncomfortable working with a Democratic Party member. See this story.
The Twentieth Amendment, passed in 1933 to change the inauguration date for presidents from March to January, seems to say that both voters and presidential electors are permitted to vote for individuals who don’t meet the constitutional qualifications. It says, “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President has failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified.”
The clause “or if the President has failed to qualify” shows that the authors of this constitutional amendment imagined that the voters might have chosen someone who doesn’t qualify. Therefore, logically, it seems they believed that the voters (and presidential electors as well) should have the ability to vote for someone who isn’t qualified; otherwise there would never been an instance at which the president-elect “failed to qualify.”
In 1972, Linda Jenness, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president who was only age 31 at the time, waged a court battle to be allowed on the Ohio ballot, despite being under-age. Her attorneys relied on this language in the 20th amendment in their federal lawsuit, Jenness v Brown, s.d., civ-72-204. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph D. Kinneary brushed off this argument by saying, in an unreported decision, that the purpose of the 20th amendment was not to change the age qualification, a statement that is not really responsive to Jenness’ argument.
The December 21 Wall Street Journal has an op-ed, mentioning this language in the 20th amendment, by John C. Harrison and Saikrishna Prakash. It is behind a paywall. It does not mention Jenness v Brown, but it makes the same argument that Jenness had made.
Ruth Marcus, deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Post, writes here that the 14th amendment, section 3, should not be used “to prevent Americans from voting to elect the candidate of their choice.” She hopes the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reverses the Colorado State Supreme Court decision Anderson v Griswold.
Both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are circulating independent presidential petitions in Ohio. Because neither party has yet chosen national nominees, each is using stand-ins on the petitions. Ohio law explicitly allows stand-ins, who will resign from the ticket when the actual nominees are known.
The Libertarian petition now carries the names of Tricia Sprankle for president and Ken Moellman for vice-president.
The Green petition has Jill Stein for president and Anita Rios for vice-president.
The Ohio independent petition required 5,000 signatures, but the party petition requires 40,345. Therefore, each party is using the easier method, although unfortunately candidates who use the independent petition cannot have the party label on the ballot. The only qualified parties in Ohio in 2024 will probably be Republican, Democratic, and No Labels. The No Labels Party submitted its party petition over eight months ago and the state still hasn’t said if it is valid, although it is very likely the state will make that determination before the end of the year. No Labels submitted more than twice as many signatures as were required.