On August 23, U.S. District Court Judge Aleta A. Trauger, a Clinton appointee, upheld the Tennessee petition requirement for parties to get on the ballot.  The law requires signatures equal to 2.5% of the last gubernatorial vote, which this year is 43,498 signatures.  Darnell v Hargett, m.d., 3:23cv-1266.

The decision is only twelve pages and says the law was already upheld a few years ago, in a case brought by the Green and Constitution Parties.  Since then, however, the Sixth Circuit has struck down a Michigan petition requirement for statewide independent candidates that was only 30,000 signatures, in Graveline v Benson.  The Michigan requirement was less than 1% of the last gubernatorial vote.  Tennessee and Michigan are both in the Sixth Circuit, so the Graveline decision should have been binding.

Judge Trauger differentiated the Graveline case by saying that the plaintiff in that case had really tried to get on the ballot and had failed, and had therefore strong evidence that the Michigan law was too difficult.  In the current Tennessee Libertarian case, the party did not make an effort to comply with the law.

In the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down or remanded cases involving petition requirements even if the plaintiff did not try to petition.  That was true for Gus Hall in California in 1972 in Storer v Breown; Eugene McCarthy in 1976 in Texas in McCarthy v Briscoe; and the Socialist Labor Party in Ohio in 1968 in Williams v Rhodes.  But the judge did not mention any of those cases.

On Friday, August 23, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., spoke in Arizona for almost an hour.  We said he is suspending his campaign but that he will keep his name on the ballot in all but ten battleground states.  He said that if the U.S. had an honest election system, inclusive debates and a better media, he could have won.  He endorsed Donald Trump based on his disagreement with the Democratic ticket on three issues:  health, the Ukraine war, and censorship of social media.  He did say that he has serious disagreements with Donald Trump.

It is clear to those who watched the entire speech that the issue closest to his heart is declining health in the United States.  He painted a bleak picture of the prevalence of chronic disease and contrasted today’s situation with the situation sixty years ago.

He erroneously said that his campaign had collected more signatures than any other in U.S. history.  Actually his campaign did not collect as many signatures as the 1992 Ross Perot campaign, and perhaps several others.  Because Kennedy was nominated by ballot-qualified minor parties in California and Florida, and because presidential ballot access has eased since 1992, he did not face the same ballot access barriers that some others in the past have faced.  On the other hand, no other candidate has been challenged over ballot access procedures as much as Kennedy this year, except for Ralph Nader in 2004.

The Montana Libertarian Party has sent in paperework to list Chase Oliver as the party’s presidential nominee.  Normally this would not be newsworthy, but in this case it is.  Earlier the state party had said it would not place anyone on the ballot for president.