On August 1, the New Jersey Democratic Party asked the New Jersey Secretary of State to remove Shiva Ayyadurai from the ballot.  He is an independent presidential candidate with the ballot label “Dr. Shiva.”  He was not born in the United States.  See this story.

As already noted, New Jersey has traditionally not enforced presidential qualifications, and has printed the names of six minor party and independent presidential or vice-presidential candidates who were under age 35, or who were not born in the United States.

The number of signatures needed for someone running for president outside the major parties in 2024 is substantially more difficult than it had been in 2020.  That is partly because legislatures increased the number of signatures, and partly because some states temporarily decreased their requirements in 2020 because of the covid health crisis.

Using the easier method in each state, the number nationwide in 2020 had been 568,689 signatures or registrants, and in 2024 it is 660,897.

The states that increased the presidential petition requirements were New York in 2020, and Arkansas, Colorado, and Iowa in 2021.  Certain other states also increased requirements for office other than president.

Jurisdictions that temporarily eased the presidential petition requirements in 2020 due to covid were the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia.  Also New York increased the permanent requirement in 2020 to 45,000, but then lowered it only for 2020 to 30,000.

The calculation assumes that the easier method in California is the independent presidential petition, not the registration method that creates a new party.  However, both methods are extremely burdensome, and it is a close call.  In 2024 the independent petition is 219,403 signatures and the party registration method is approximately 75,000 party members.  The exact requirement for the registration method won’t be known for several weeks, when the state issues a new Report of Registration.

Two petitions have been submitted in New Hampshire to place Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the ballot.  One has his label as “We the People” and the other is “Libertarian.”

New Hampshire has no name protection for unqualified parties, and in 2008 two separate presidential candidates appeared on the ballot, both with the label “Libertarian”, Bob Barr and George Phillies.

Assuming both Kennedy petitions are valid, he will be listed on the ballot as “We the People, Libertarian.”  He would only be listed once.  His campaign is not responsible for the petition with the Libertarian label.  It seems that the Kennedy Libertarian petition was completed by individuals not formally connected with Kennedy, possibly for federal campaign finance purposes.

Chase Oliver has also completed his petition in New Hampshire.  New Hampshire is one of only five states with a party column ballot format.  The New Hampshire Secretary of State has a habit of squeezing Libertarians and independents into a single party column labelled “Libertarian and Other”, instead of giving separate columns.