One of the greatest obstacles that an independent candidate faces when running for president is ballot access. Each state has its own requirements for names to appear on the ballot. In Tennessee, it’s 275 signatures; in California, it’s more than 200,000; in Iowa, a statewide caucus can be used instead of signatures. Winning ballot access across all 50 states is a massive undertaking for an independent candidate, which can cost $20 million to $30 million and begins up to two years before Election Day. Because of campaign-finance laws, for decades, only someone who was independently wealthy, like Ross Perot and Michael Bloomberg, could plausibly run as an independent. Campaign-finance laws place limits on the size of the contributions an individual can give to a federal political campaign or party committee. The maximum individual contribution to a campaign is $3,300, so a candidate who can’t self-fund would have to raise maximum contributions from 10,000 donors, or smaller contributions from an even larger number, simply to get on the ballot. Lora Kelley: RFK Jr.’s wild-card run But …