According to an interesting article on the Volokh Conspiracy blog at the Washington Post, many state ballot access laws will prevent whoever loses the Republican presidential nomination at the July 18 to July 21 convention from effectively running as a third-party candidate. As a result, if Donald Trump is thinking about running as a third-party candidate, he will likely need to make a final decision by mid-April at the latest. The filing deadline for independent presidential candidates in Texas is coming up quickly – May 9 – and the candidate will need “1% of the total votes cast for all candidates in the previous presidential election,” or about 80,000 signatures, to be on the ballot.  In other words, last-minute decisions are doomed to fail. Other states with filing deadlines before the end of the GOP convention include North Carolina (June 9); Illinois (June 27); Indiana and New Mexico (June 30); Nevada (July 8); Georgia (July 12); Delaware,...(Read Full Post)