Illinois permits unqualified parties to circulate a petition with stand-in candidates, and because the petition deadline is so early (June 25 this year), the Green Party used a stand-in, Howie Hawkins, for vice-president. When the party started circulating its petition, it didn’t know who its vice-presidential nominee would be. Technically, it didn’t know for sure who its presidential candidate would be either, but the Illinois Green Party leaders assumed it would be Jill Stein.

Later, after the petition had succeeded, the party attempted to replace Hawkins with the actual vice-presidential nominee, Cheri Honkala. However, the paperwork for that was late, so Hawkins remains on the Illinois ballot for vice-president. This doesn’t really matter. In 1996, the Reform Party was unable to replace its vice-presidential stand-ins with the actual vice-presidential nominee, Pat Choate, in most states, because Choate was chosen so late. This is just another reminder that the true candidates in November are the candidates for presidential elector, and the information on the ballot about the names of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees is just information about the intentions of the elector candidates. This is an elementary point, based on Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, that the Michigan Secretary of State, and some federal judges in Michigan, do not grasp.