The incumbent Coroner of Lake County, Illinois, hopes to be re-elected this year. The race is partisan. He initially circulated petitions to run in the Democratic primary, but withdrew from that race. Now Democrats in the county have challenged his candidacy as an independent, on the grounds that he can’t be an independent candidate because of his prior activity with the Democratic Party. Illinois voter registration forms do not ask applicants to choose a party affiliation, so there are frequent disputes in Illinois, as well as Ohio, over who is eligible to be an independent candidate. See this story.
This story refers to the “sore loser law” we have here in Illinois. You can’t run in one party’s primary election and then as an independent, or new party candidate, once you lose. In addition, there’s also the issue that once you file to run as a party’s candidate, you’re legally affiliated with that party for an uncertain period of time. The courts have agreed that there is a lock in period, but they have disagreed about how long. One said 23 months.