On November 2, at 9:15 a.m., U.S. District Court Judge Robert Dow will hear arguments in Stone v Neal, 1:10-cv-07727, which challenges Chicago ballot access laws that require 12,500 valid signatures for each of the three citywide offices, and which further say that voters can only sign for one candidate for each office. Chicago city offices are all non-partisan. Chicago elects its citywide officers in February of the odd years before presidential election years. If no one gets as much as 50%, there is a runoff in April.
Plaintiffs argue that if candidates for statewide office can get on a partisan primary ballot with only 5,000 signatures, it is nonsensical to require them to get 12,500 signatures to run within Chicago, which is of course only a subset of the entire state of Illinois.
One more NO brainer case ???
A State is NOT a City and vice versa.
I.E. each regime can have its own EQUAL ballot access stuff.
P.R. and App.V.
NO primaries are needed or wanted.
Yes, but it’s a state election law that mandates the 12,500 figure for Chicago candidates. The government of Chicago did not write that law or choose that policy.
Any thing in the IL Const preventing the State regime from dictating local govt regime ballot access laws ???