Illinois township elections are mostly partisan. The Illinois election law lets township parties decide for themselves whether to nominate by primary or caucus. If the party nominates by caucus, it has the power to insist that no one may be nominated who is not part of a slate of candidates for all the township offices. Townships elect a supervisor and trustees.
Bloom Township’s Democratic Party had a contested caucus last month, and many candidates were not able to be nominated because they weren’t part of a full slate. Some of those candidate have filed a federal lawsuit, Merrick v Wilcox, n.d., 1:20cv-7782, alleging that the full slate rule for caucus township nominations is unconstitutional. They were in state court earlier, but the state court wouldn’t consider the constitutional issue.
The township general election is April 6, 2021. Here is a motion filed on March 4 by the plaintiffs, asking that the candidates who were not able to be nominated at the caucus at least be allowed to be on the general election ballot as independents.
IMO, a political party is a private association that may nominate candidates according to its own rules. However, no law should constrain any candidate from running as an independent for failure to receive the nomination of a party. “Sore loser” election laws ought to be repealed.
What Nov 2020 township had the lowest voter pop ???
NOOO party hack caucuses and/or primaries
—
EQUAL nom pets only
PR and APPV
TOTSOP
WZ – parties are a faction/fraction of ALL PUBLIC electors/voters in PUBLIC nominations for PUBLIC offices.
They are PRIVATE groups For internal clubby stuff.
See 1989 Eu SCOTUS op.
EACH OFFICE IS OBVIOUSLY TOTALLY SEPARATE FROM OTHER OFFICES.
— WITH INDIVIDUAL CANDIDATES FOR EACH SUCH SEPARATE OFFICE.
TOO MANY REALLY DUMB LAWYERS AND JUDGES TO COUNT IN BALLOT ACCESS CASES.