Secretary Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. rejected the petition because it had not been filed by the state's deadline of seventy-five days prior to the presidential primary.

Second, the deadline was earlier than that required by candidates in the major parties, thereby violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Various candidates rise and fall in popularity; domestic and international developments bring new issues to center stage and may affect voters' assessments of national problems.

11 At this point developments in campaigns for the major-party nominations have only begun, and the major parties will not adopt their nominees and platforms for another five months.

Candidates and supporters within the major parties thus have the political advantage of continued flexibility; for independents, the inflexibility imposed by the March filing deadline is a correlative disadvantage because of the competitive nature of the electoral process.