Posted on As already reported, on March 29, the Sixth Circuit struck down Michigan’s statewide independent candidate petition, which required 30,000 signatures due in July. The time for the state to ask for a rehearing has now passed, and the state did not ask for a rehearing. Graveline v Benson, 20-1337. The basis for the decision was that the petition had been in existence since 1988, but in all those years, only two statewide independent petitions had succeeded, both for president (Ralph Nader in 2004 and Ross Perot in 1992). For other statewide office, it had never been used at all. The Sixth Circuit includes four states: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The Graveline precedent will make it plausible to challenge the new party petition procedures in Tennessee and Ohio. The Tennessee party petition had existed since 1961 but has been used only once, in 1968, by George Wallace’s American Party.