New Hampshire Representatives Alvin See and Michael Moffett (both Republicans from Loudon) have introduced HB 363. It eases the declaration of candidacy deadline for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from June, to the third Monday of July.

It also decouples the petition deadline for such candidates from the date of the non-presidential primary. The bill does not change the petition deadline much, but says it would usually be 13 weeks before the general election. Thirteen weeks works out to early August. The advantage of this is that if the legislature moves the non-presidential primary from September to an earlier date, that would not affect the independent candidate petition deadline. In 2021 the legislature passed a bill moving the September primary to an earlier date, and under the existing law, that change automatically would have moved the independent petition deadlines to an earlier month. The only reason the state hasn’t already moved the date of the September primary to an earlier date is that Governor Chris Sununu vetoed the bill.

Eight Wyoming legislators have introduced HB 155, which would make ballot access for minor parties and independent candidates more restrictive. Currently large qualified parties nominate by primary in late August, and smaller qualified parties nominate by convention and must submit the names of their nominees by the day before the primary. Also currently, independent candidate petitions are due in late August.

The bill would provide that minor parties would need to choose their nominees no later than 81 days before the primary, which would be early June. Also it would provide that independent candidate petitions would be due in early June.

There are many federal court precedents that independent candidate petition deadlines cannot be earlier than the primary. If this bill were enacted, it would probably be held unconstitutional.

Wyoming has always had liberal petition deadlines for independent candidates. The deadline has always been in October, September, or August of the election year.

The sponsors are all Republicans. The two Senate sponsors are Lynn Hutchings and Cheri Steinmetz. The six House sponsors are Tony Locke, Bill Allemand, Allen Slagle, Scott Smith, Clarence Styvar, and Tamara Trujillo. Representative Smith had an independent opponent last year who came fairly close to winning.

Last month, the No Labels Party submitted a petition to be a qualified party in Alabama. The signatures are still being checked.