SPRINGFIELD (ILLINOIS CAPITOL BUREAU) -- A federal court order issued Thursday will allow Libertarian and Green party candidates for president and U.S. Senate spots on the November ballot without the usual petition-gathering requirement. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer sided with the Illinois political organizations who argued the states' stay-at-home order impaired their ability to gather signatures to meet the filing deadline to appear on the ballot. The Green Party can also name candidates to the ballot in the 5th and 12th congressional races.
The filing deadline for non-establishment parties and independent candidates is now August 7. Under the order, candidates will only need to gather 10% of the petition signatures usually required. For example, candidates will only need 2,500 signatures to appear on the ballot for President, U.S. Senate, Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court races. The normal requirement for those contests is 25,000.
"Things can get held up in the courts for a long time in regular circumstances. Given the circumstances we're in now, we were worried that the process would be even longer," said Steve Suess, State Chair of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. "Luckily, we were able to reach a settlement agreement."
Signature requirement
The court order also drops a requirement for physical signatures on petitions. That means candidates can collect electronic signatures using a finder or computer mouse. The Illinois State Board of Elections says photocopied signatures are acceptable for petitions. Suess argues there is still a challenge to get on the ballot.
"Someone running for a Congressional district can only get signatures from people living in that Congressional district," Suess said. "Finding a way to reach out to the people who are qualified to sign a petition is going to be difficult when there's not already crowds of people." He adds the best petitioning opportunities probably won't happen during this election cycle as farmers markets and county fairs have been canceled.
"We'll have to figure out a way to network people in a digital sense to rally the troops and get signatures," explained Suess. However, Illinois is rather late to the era of digital signatures for petitions. State lawmakers have tried to pass plans to implement electronic signatures for nominating, candidate and referendum petitions. Suess feels Illinois can use this situation as a "test drive" for electronic signatures. He hopes lawmakers will pass a plan through the Statehouse before the next election cycle.
"I don't see why, if this process works, the state would take it away once we are over this crisis."
