Both Montana bills that restrict ballot access have been amended. SB 566, which originally imposed a top-two system just for U.S. Senate in 2024, now applies to all statewide partisan offices except president. If the bill were enacted, there would be no means for a party to remain ballot-qualified unless it polled a large share of the vote for president. The percentage of the vote for president needed depends on what happens to the other bill, SB 565.

SB 565, the bill to raise petition requirements for minor parties, independent candidates, and independent presidential candidates, and to increase the vote test, has been amended so it is not quite so severe. The original bill raised all petitions to 5% of the number of registered voters, approximately 38,000. With the amendments, the party petition and the independent presidential petition rise from 5,000 signatures to 15,000 signatures. The petition for non-presidential independents rises from 5% of the vote cast for the winning candidate for that office to 5% of the total vote cast for that office.

Another amendment to SB 565 makes the vote test worse than the existing law, but not as bad as the original bill. The existing law requires a vote for a statewide office of 5% of the winning gubernatorial’s vote total. The original bill raised that to 5% of the number of registered voters. The amendment lowers that to 5% of the total vote cast in the last election. The amendment no longer removes the Libertarian Party from the ballot. In 2020 the Libertarian Party polled 31,267 votes for Auditor, and the new vote test under the amendment would be 30,604 votes.

The amendments retain more severe distribution requirements for the party petition. Existing law requires the lesser of 150 signatures, or 5% of the gubernatorial winner’s vote, in each of 34 state house districts. The amendments raise the 150 signature cap to 250. The amendments say the requirement within each state house district is the lesser of 250 or 5% of the total gubernatorial vote in that district. This amendment suffers from the same defect that caused the original distribution requirement to be declared unconstitutional last year in the Green Party’s winning case.

If SB 565 passes as amended, Montana would easily have the nation’s highest presidential petition requirement in the nation, when the states are compared using the easier method available for presidential candidates. All other states are at or below 2% of the last vote cast, for president, but Montana’s 15,000 would be 2.5% of the 2020 presidential vote. The bills would take effect January 1, 2024, so if the bills pass, the current easier law would be in effect for the remainder of this year.

It will make me very happy if future comments are confined to the subject of the blog post, or at least to the general topic of ballot access. In particular, comments about other commenters are not welcome and degrade the site. Thank you very much. There is a lot of drama this year in the struggle for fair ballot access laws. The year 2023 is a very bad year for ballot access, with truly repressive bills in danger of passing in Montana, Texas, and Minnesota. There is plenty to comment on that is relevant to the purpose of this website.

On April 11, the Second Circuit issued an opinion in Gottlieb v Lamont, 22-449. It upholds the Connecticut petition requirements for candidates who seek to get their names on a primary ballot. In Connecticut, only parties that had polled 20% for Governor have primaries; other qualified parties nominate by convention.

The plaintiffs challenged the requirements for legislative candidates, a petition of 5% of the number of registered party members, to be collected in only 14 days. Most Republicans and Democrats who get on primary ballots in Connecticut do not need to complete this petition, because candidates also get on the primary ballot if they get the support of at least 15% of the delegates to a party meeting. In the past, Connecticut didn’t even have procedures for candidates to get on a primary ballot if they lacked 15% support at a meeting, so the tradition of candidates petitioning in primaries is not grounded in Connecticut history. The only reason Connecticut has a petition alternative for primaries is that in 2003, a U.S. District Court issued an opinion forcing the state to add such procedures. That case was Campbell v Bysiewicz. The state did not appeal that case, so the primary petition procedures were added in 2003, but they were very severe. The primary petitions for statewide office require 2% of the number of registered voters in that party, to be collected in six weeks. The statewide primary petition requirements were not at issue in the Gottlieb case.

The Gottlieb opinion is not signed, and will not be reported. It was before Judge Robert D. Sack, a Clinton appointee; Judge Susan L. Carney, an Obama appointee, and Joseph Bianco, a Trump appointee. The opinion says because some candidates have managed to complete primary petitions, therefore it isn’t too difficult. It says that in 2018, eighteen primary petitions succeeded. This is not many, because Connecticut has 186 legislative races every two years.