Hal Patton, Mayor of Edwardsville, Illinois, will appear on the November ballot as the nominee for State Senate, 56th district, of the Downstate United Party. He needed 5,201 signatures and he submitted 9,000. No one challenged his petition.
He is really a Republican, and he tried to be the Republican nominee for State Senate earlier this year. But his petition to get on the Republican primary ballot was ruled invalid because he had signed a petition to help a Democratic candidate get on the Democratic primary ballot for State Rep. Patton is a dentist and he signed for the Democratic candidate because she was one of his patients. But the courts upheld his removal from the Republican primary ballot on the theory that when he signed her petition, he accidentally affiliated himself with the Democratic Party, so he couldn’t be a Republican candidate.
The person who had challenged his Republican primary petition, Rachelle Crowe, is the Democratic nominee for State Senate in the 56th district. When the 56th district was last up for election, in 2016, there was only one candidate on the ballot, a Democrat.
It is extremely likely that Patton will get more than 5% of the vote in November, and that will cause the Downstate United Party to become a ballot-qualified party for the 56th district in future elections.
Yet another reason to have NO primaries.
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PR and AppV
It is not extremely hard to qualify a new part for a local election in Illinois. It is quite common to qualify a new party before each election, which avoids having a primary. The new party will use the same initials as the old party so that campaign signs can be reused.
Jim Riley- It depends on how you define local in regards to difficulty. In Indiana, for State House, one would probably need 800-900 signatures, much less than the 5,201 this person needed. Based on what I have heard from a solid source in Illinois, if this person gets the 5% of the vote, then to be on the ballot again in 2020 will require hardly any signatures at all in comparison to this year.
@CC,
Illinois permits parties to qualify to nominate at an extremely fine level, such as a municipality or even a ward level. Illinois holds it local elections in the odd year (referred to as a consolidated election, distinguished from the general election in even years.
If a party is qualified, it has to nominate by primary. This permits an upstart to run in the primary and be nominated. Remember that in Illinois, a voter may change parties at the primary. Rather than holding a primary, the ruling faction qualifies a “new” party, and can name the candidates. If a trustee was too independent, lax in attending meetings, etc., he can simply be left off the ticket. He would then have to run as an independent or form his own party. While it is harder to qualify
The Village of Berkeley (western edge of Cook County) has had a different party sweep the elections every two years since at least 2001, but incumbent trustees have been re-elected every election. In 2001 and 2005, there were two competing parties, but appears that one party has established hegemony since then. Elections for village trustee are 3 elected for four-year terms. If faced with a ballot that says Vote For Three, a voter is most likely to choose 3 from the same party. They simply don’t have enough information to make other distinctions.
I’m not saying that it would make sense for the candidate in Edwardsville to run as a different party each election.