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In the November 2024 election, there are fewer independent candidates for U.S. House on the ballot than at any previous election since 2004. This year there are 57.
Past years: 2022 78; 2020 64; 2018 84; 2016 72; 2014 82; 2012 104; 2010 140; 2008 65; 2006 63; 2004 44.
EIGHT WINS, SEVEN LOSSES IN BALLOT ACCESS CASES
During August, minor parties and independents won eight lawsuits or challenges, and lost seven. However, not all the cases are over.
Winning Cases
Illinois: on August 23, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., won his challenge process and will appear on the ballot. The decision says that it doesn’t matter if he was recently a registered Democrat; he can still be an independent candidate in Illinois. It says his address was not sworn to on his paperwork, so it doesn’t matter if there is evidence that he doesn’t live at his designated New York state address.
Some of his petitioners had worked on other petitions in other states this year. Also some of them had worked on Kennedy’s independent petitions in other states. Illinois is the only state that won’t let petitioners work for a general election candidate if they had worked on other petitions that year. The decision says that the petitioners who circulated general election petitions in other states (either for Kennedy or some other minor party or independent candidate) can circulate for Kennedy in Illinois. But petitioners who worked on Republican or Democratic primary petitions in other states can’t circulate for him. Fortunately, even after those signatures were subtracted, he still had enough.
Maine: on August 21, the Secretary of State dismissed the challenge to Cornel West’s petition. The challengers had said he didn’t have enough valid signatures, but they wanted to disallow all signatures in which the signer used a nickname instead of a formal first name. They also wanted to reject all signatures in which the signer included the month and day of signing, but not the year.
On September 25, the Georgia Libertarian Party appealed Cowen v Raffensperger to the Eleventh Circuit. This is the case filed in 2017 over the Georgia ballot access law for minor party and independent candidates for U.S. House. The case had mostly lost, but the Equal Protection part of the case had been still alive until last month., when the U.S. District Court had dismissed it entirely.
Shortly before the U.S. District Court had dismissed the case entirely, the Libertarian Party had informed the judge that this year, the Georgia legislature had changed the law for presidential ballot access. The new law said a minor party can be on for president even if it has no support whatsoever inside Georgia. The new law lets a minor party be on for president automatically in Georgia if it is on for president in at least 20 other jurisdictions.
The party argued that this undercuts the state’s defense of the U.S. House requirement. The state had argued that a state has a compelling interest in keeping candidates off the ballot unless they have overwhelming support, but that argument is contradicted by the new presidential access law. But the U.S. District Court wouldn’t let the party amend its Complaint to make this point, so now the party is appealing to the Eleventh Circuit.
On September 10, U.S. District Court Judge William C. Griesbach, a Bush Jr. appointee, issued an order in Marshall v Wisconsin Election Commission, e.d., 1:24cv-1095. He refused to put Shiva Ayyadurai on the ballot as an independent candidate, even though the petition had enough valid signatures. The reason is that Ayyadurai was born in India.
The four-page order says the case is frivolous on its face. Yet the issues are not frivolous, and were the subject of extensive briefing in Trump v Anderson. It does not follow logically that just because a presidential candidate does not meet the constitutional qualifications, that he or she cannot run for President. This is true partly because the presidential electors are the true candidates in November. It is also true because the Twentieth Amendment specifically provides for procedures when presidential electors in December choose a president who doesn’t meet the qualifications. It also ignores the fact that in the past, Wisconsin did print the name of a vice-presidential nominee on the ballot even though he was age 33.
Ayyadurai plans to appeal, although there is no possibility that he can be on the ballot this year.
On September 23, the Seventh Circuit refused to reconsider its August decision in Indiana Green Party v Morales, 23-2756. The issue was the number of signatures needed for statewide independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties. No such petition had succeeded since 2000, except that in 2024, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s petition had also succeeded.
Indiana is one of only three states in which the Green Party presidential nominee has never appeared on the ballot. The others are Oklahoma and South Dakota.