Per the federal lawsuit filed by Texas Libertarians, Texas Greens, and other third parties and independent candidates in 2019, blogged about by [the author] at the time, in-depth, here …
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman officially fucked over the plaintiffs. Summary judgment for Texas Secretary of State (then Ruth Hughs) on all but one item, per the ruling. Via Ballot Access News, and contra the first commenter, allowing petition e-signatures is NOT significant, whether this is the first such ruling or not.
The meat of the ruling starts on page 18 of the 28-page ruling. Pitman says the signature amounts required are not unduly burdensome, first. He then notes Greens have only had to do that once in the past 16 years and not at all since 2002 for Libertarians, therefore claiming, in essence, that this is nugatory. He then says that lesser third parties who were plaintiffs aren’t “active,” so, in essence, they don’t count.
Starting on page 24, he rejects that the new filing fees are unduly burdensome. He doesn’t even wrestle with the issue of minor parties not being convention-nominating parties. Related to that, on 25ff Pitman rejects the idea that the differential ballot access violates the Equal Protection Clause. He says that’s because candidates can do the petition route instead. He did allow the e-signatures, yes, but did not strike down the amount required after saying it’s not burdensome and insinuating it’s nugatory.
As for details of his ruling on e-signatures? The SoS will likely adopt the most restrictive version possible, meaning, we’ll be back in court. And, next year’s Lege may, with e-sigs being allowed, decide to up the number of signatures required to, say, 1.5 percent or even a full 2 percent. It’s got Pitman’s blessing, pretty much. Let’s also remember that Pitman did nothing about the restrictive time frame for signing such petitions.
And this is why, contra commenter Mark, I don’t consider the e-signatures that big of a deal. In my response, I think I said “due process.” I meant the Equal Protection Clause. There’s no way, unless he was a total hack like Judge Cannon, that Pitman could have ruled any other way on that issue. Everything else, he told the state of Texas to “carry on.” So, if it wants to raise signature requirements or something? It will.
The original article by Steve Snyder can be viewed on the author’s personal site. The title has been changed for this article to reflect the Independent Political Report Community Guidelines.
George, not for third party candidates, no. But, as the tail end of the ruling notes, electronic methodology has already been allowed in other ways for Republicans and Democrats. So, Pitman basically had to allow that to indys and third parties under Equal Protection.
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On the larger picture, Texas is not the worst state on number of signatures; I’ve read enough here and at BAN about other states to know that. I’d put it in the bottom one-third, for sure, though, and maybe bottom 10. But, it’s a holistic three-legged stool, which also includes the short time frame and one other petition language issue.
The petitions cannot be circulated until after party primaries. And, it’s 75 days from then.
The petition language? This:
“I know that the purpose of this petition is to entitle the _______ Party to have its nominees placed on the ballot in the general election for state and county officers. I have not voted in a primary election or participated in a convention of another party during this voting year, and I understand that I become ineligible to do so by signing this petition. I understand that signing more than one petition to entitle a party to have its nominees placed on the general election ballot in the same election is prohibited.”
So, it’s restrictive on who can sign, and a bit intimidating. When gathering physical signatures, you were supposed to read that to a potential signer. I’m sure that with e-signatures, the Texas Lege may rule next year on details of size of print, boldface, etc. that an e-sig petition has to have on that statement. And, per the first leg of the stool, as I noted, the Texas Lege may raise the signature percentage from 1 percent to 1.5 or 2 or something.
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Greens and Libertarians are both ballot-qualified, but …. nominees have to pay the same filing fee that duopoly candidates do, even though they have conventions and not primaries. Now, you can do the signature route as a candidate in lieu of that, …. which itself requires 5,000 signatures for a statewide office. That’s not as bad as a party trying to (re)gain ballot access, but it’s not nothing.
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The one good thing about HB 2504 (and the only really good thing) is it lowered the ballot access requirement for minor parties staying on the ballot from 5 percent to 2 percent in any statewide race in the last 5 election cycles. Greens hit that in 2016. But not since. So, it’s either this year, or 2024, or back to the ballot access petitions. (Libertarians are easily clear of this.)
The same signature requirements apply to independent candidates as well as third parties; a few past independent candidates were among plaintiffs.
Have they previously allowed e-signatures?
Thanks!