procedure twelve b six the district court it also by ruling that ohio statutes which required in purchasing signing and witnessing of covet nineteen social distancing orders of which there are four that we need to deal with the district court eared by overruling because the court correct late to ensure the safety of its the public its employees lawyers and judges perhaps lawyers and would she be last there said that it would be safer i concur wholly so on the other hand the state of ohio issued for orders which are they on their surface they go on their surface and has applied make no sense as we look at this currently what we're arguing is that how you will cry the statutes in a pandemic should be logical and consistent with the spirit of the law or legislative intent we're in a situation where the pla feel they're sort of in a tragic comedy where the broad orders are being issued about a pandemic where all mass gatherings which as applied in reality is where you get signatures for candidates either that are going door to door with a list so with four orders to them i'm starting out with broad prohibitions against however you let me ask you i'm concerned a little bit about the fact that see the right to petition often when people think of st amendment speech they think freedom of the press or they think of you know freedom of assembly  actually petitioning is a more complex issue in fact you can't continue shouldn't federally say not to go to war because of the republic clause in the that who your college work starts out as a general prohibition against people meeting right the last order they issued said people with ten or more  can't really gather together so the reality of a pandemic it's face to face when ink signatures are in fact a possible best and that what people are going to hear is you can't have more than ten people at your house and there's a pandemic and you should socially distance they're not going to wonder why the notion of a of two thousand and two when it lost the ballot recognition status doesn't that failure to move forward earlier play a role in this case no but they were in fact collecting signatures already know that they had undergone back to the previous year and they were collecting signatures although i would concede that the nature is sometimes  towards the end of this process but you know that they were pretty much shut out in march so by the time the april th if you lost a month and a half of petition gathering  in the post war history oh hi all indicating that there clearly were people willing to support the green party as you will see in the gubernatorial vote of two thousand and fourteen and they were in fact collecting signatures you banned all mass gathering cannabis festivals the environmental festivals all the play the community festival in columbus all the places where tens of thousands of signatures are gathered at one time apply and is far more in common with the shockey the ruling of the court i mean if you're saying that people in a pandemic are allowed to have you know go out and get wet turn up to the th order and it just refers to circulators i think it looks as if there's a record st you know on the surface i mean why wasn't the state saying you know there's various sign there's all sorts of legal matters that are being carried on because the judicial branch was wise enough to come up with ways to conduct business when the state of ohio could have in bringing this case and nd on the merits i want to start with delay because one critical aspect of this case you'll see in the briefing and then come out an argument for my friend is that he's not yet suggested what will be put be available except just a free pass to the b candidates on the ballot when they challenged an even more onerous signature requirement in connecticut because he said you could drop as much earlier and if you had there may have been a way to accommodate the concerns without the draft remedy of putting the you straight on the ballot now we're in a similar situation here days to appeal and in the interim the june th deadline in which which was the st deadline that issue had run out that virtually guaranteed that the only relief they could possibly get would just be a free pass some of the bout there's nothing else that can be done i don't think at this point they certainly have not suggested anything and that latches argument independently requires affirming the district court but i want to get to the merits because my friend began his argument by saying that the district courts  fly for a few reasons st it's not a factual determination the question whether a lot of a is a legal determination that doesn't depend upon the facts nd their argument just fails on the face of the orders the initial orders all contained an  exemption for st amendment protected speech and that applied to the very gatherings are talking about except as so they were the st amendment exemption applied from the very beginning of the stay at home orders beginning on april th the state expressly permitted signature gathering there  argument that a law expressively permitting signature gathering is vague and i would note that is early as april state was taking the position in court that the st amendment exemption permitted signature gathering so if we had tried to prosecute someone are less severe than the ones that were deemed merely intermediate by thompson so in thompson we're dealing with initiative proponents people who want to put an initiative on about make it law they need his signature is one number ten percent of the people who voted for governor requirements here are far less the green party needed one percent of those who voted in the twenty eight when this will race and they could have started in november th and the independent parties had a year to gather just five thousand signatures now since this george floyd where people were gathering signatures and in fact there was a massive movement to recall the columbus mayor the walloping although i got far more than five thousand signatures in a very short period of time we've had municipal initiatives that have been submitted to  at the case military thurstan from the th circuit at least the oral argument in that case there was discussion about drive through signature drives that they were running to safely gather signatures during the pandemic so there were options for doing this and that also brings that as long as the states not stop you from gathering signatures well no doubt pandemic makes it harder makes our it makes every aspect of life partner from grocery shopping to do anything else as long as they don't prevent you from exercising those rights not impose circumstances that make a outside a state law that makes something burdensome let me give you an analogy if the green party a hired a about a signature collection company and the company has reached its contract and stops collecting signatures or perhaps an independent candidate for president broke his leg and was unable to severely and was in the hospital and couldn't go gather signatures he would have a hard time getting enough signatures that qualify but that would not be a state pose a burden that would matter for the birth analysis and the same is true here there are no allegations that they made any efforts to continue selecting collecting signatures after the pandemic hit and indeed the only basis they give this court for finding a severe burden is the supposed of the of the stay at home order so if your honour's don't think those are vague this case is over there's not much more to do finally i want to st of all i want to thank your honour's for hearing oral argument i know it's obviously this is a compressed case we understand the that do you not see the distinction in those two bar knowing the really well there is there are different burdens but the reason that they're not material here is because we have to ask the question if we assume every fact that they allege to be true have they impose a severe modicum of support serve every important interest in limiting clutter the supreme court said the same thing so those interests are compelling as a matter of law and i don't think anyone's using their ballot access laws for those which is why no one says these would be invalid  which is an issue of law and fact and the key issue it if a minor party which doesn't have a lot of money say for example it doesn't own the state house and can't have sixty million dollars in bride money from say a nuclear power company in that situation they're reliant upon volunteers they had already begun and again the lawsuit came before june th housing counselors referring to after june th for the appeal so they did they did move forward they went out they tried they deserve to be heard by a court what was their experience in a pandemic which is associated with sickness and death which is unprecedented and the state of ohio has in fact there are remedies in two thousand and eight i know there is a remedy because i tried it before judge frost that the parties were put on the ballot in fact four parties the libertarian party the constitutional law party the green party and the socialist party because it was such a burden that had been designed as the minor party law in ohio it was struck down by the the aspect of the vagueness why wasn't there and a separate permutation why wasn't it made public that these people should go forward i would argue that it was it would have been an incredibly bad medical decision to put high risk people in a situation of getting a face to face wedding signature when the technology exists to do things easier what about the latches on the stage they issue the order  to orders in march they use you to peel them in march and another one in april at what point were they thinking about our political process factions ideas the marketplace of ideas that are t and for your willingness to participate in this argument by way of video we've been doing this now for several months as we all do because of