On April 3, the Montana Senate State Administration Committee passed HB 120, which makes two ballot access improvements. It permits independent presidential and vice-presidential candidates to be on the November ballot, even if they had some association with a qualified political party in the preceding period; (2) it moves the non-presidential independent petition deadline from March to May.
In 2012, two states had petition deadlines for either newly-qualifying parties or independent candidates declared unconstitutional. Those two states were California and Montana. Whereas the Montana legislature is correcting the invalid law, there is no bill in the California legislature to repair the unconstitutional filing deadline in California.
Yea 🙂