Illinois Files Brief in Lawsuit Over Independent Petition Requirement for U.S. House

Posted on by August 20, 2018

On August 20, Illinois filed this brief in U.S. District Court in Gill v Scholz, c.d., 3:16cv-3221. The issue is the petition requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House, 5% of the last vote cast.

The state’s main argument is that because the Seventh Circuit has already upheld the 5% petition for independent candidates for state house, therefore the 5% for U.S. House must also be constitutional. The glaring flaw in this argument is that Illinois requires six and one-half times as many signatures for U.S. House as it does for state house. That is because Illinois has 18 U.S. House districts, but 118 state house districts. In 2018 the average U.S. House district required 14,560 valid signatures, but the average state house petition was 2,221 valid signatures. Yet the state allows the same 90-day petitioning period for both.

The state’s brief ignores that language from several U.S. Supreme Court opinions that say the way to evaluate petition requirements is to determine how often they are used.

Comments

Illinois Files Brief in Lawsuit Over Independent Petition Requirement for U.S. House — 13 Comments

  1. One more FAILURE from start —

    SEPARATE-IS-NOT-EQUAL in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954).

    Each general election for each office is NEW.

          The Equal Protection Clause in 14th Amendment, Sec. 1 requires that all candidates for the SAME office in the SAME election area pass the SAME (i.e. *EQUAL*) test(s) for ballot access to get on state or local general election ballots.

    EQUAL nominating petitions or filing fees.

  2. Plurality elections can be gamed because of weaknesses that can be exploited hence the two-party system.

    We do not see much threat from independents to the three-party system unless true collaboration exists and the United Coalition has been using pure proportional representation (PPR) which renders seamless manuevers far advanced mathematically of any single parties and independents.

    http://www.international-parliament.org/ucc-p7-usa.html

  3. We do not see much threat from independents to the two-party system … equal nominating requirements and equal fees, one at-large district where all the seats are elected as one is a good start.

    That’s also the basics for pure proportional representation:

    Total votes cast / total open seats (plus one seat) = Hagenbach-Bishoff quota

    First names reaching quota, plus one vote, declared winner.

    If this awards too many or too few seats, then adjust the quota up or down until all seats are filled.

  4. It’s not always easy to make state and federal elections proportional in every state and the state and federal figures are near proportional, but these figures can be improved by making them more symmetric.

    For example 118 / 18 = 6.55

    So since 14,560 / 6.55 = 222.9

    …the figures used by the state seem pretty close.

  5. To run for Congress, it takes 6.5 times more signatures that state office, so we want to “determine how often they are used”.

    Plurality psychology will tend to limit the numbers of candidates to 3 to 5 maximum.

    But pure proportional representation wants much larger sets of both nominees, candidates and winners.

    Electing the whole state at-large, all seats simultaneously, is how pure proportional representation would have been.

  6. Proportional Representation for ALL legislative body elections

    – both majority rule (Democracy) and minority representation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

    Basic P.R. —

    Party Members = Party Votes x Total Members / Total Votes
    —-
    Total Members / Total Votes = EQUAL VOTES to get elected.

    ALL Votes Count — via Candidate rank order lists of other candidates
    — esp. marginal party coalition Members.

    Highest Surplus winner votes down
    Lowest loser votes up

    — pending Condorcet

  7. How much quotable SCOTUS election stuff since 1789 ???

    1,000 words ???
    5,000 words ???
    10,000 words ???

    Perhaps put ALL of them into *USEFUL INFO* AT THE TOP BAN LINK ??? —

    TO EDUCATE THE MANY MORON LAWYERS IN ELECTION LAW CASES —

    IE TO BRING UP RELEVANT STUFF AND ***NOT*** REPEAT LOSING ARGUMENTS —

    NOTING MANY SUCH WORDS ARE PERVERSIONS OF VARIOUS PARTS OF THE USA CONST AND LAWS —

    ESP. VAGUE ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS.

  8. Wikipedia is promoting party list and mixed member proportional as forms of proportional representation but these are semi-proportional and so no good.

    The only voting system that guarantees the exact lowest threshold and which is truest math is pure proportional representation (PPR):

    THE “SAINTE-LAGUE PARLIAMENT SYSTEM” for seat allocation in all multi-seat districts
    By Mike Ossipoff [Peace and Freedom] in 1992

    Divide the election’s total number of votes by the number of seats. This is the 1st quota.

    Divide this quota into each candidate’s votes, and round off to the nearest whole number. That’s that candidate’s seat allocation.

    If, due to rounding, this awards a number of seats different from the desired number of seats, then adjust the quota slightly up or down until when paragraph two is carried out, it will award all seats.
    * * *

  9. Hagenbach-Bischoff Quota for Pure Proportional Representation (PPR)
    By James Ogle [One] in 2018

    Total number of votes / total at-large seats (plus one seat) = Hagnebach-Bischoff Quota
    Any candidates reaching quota (plus one vote) are elected
    Calibrate quota up or down (within 1/10,000th accuracy) until all seats are elected and filled.
    * * *

  10. Party bosses want MMP because they are biased towards their own party and against independents and MMP systems ask voters to click one vote on a party (Germany) and a random threshold is set (Germany = 5% and Israel = 2%) and neither figure is legitimate under PPR.

    Party lists are OK when voters have the choice to rank a party list, to create a list or to vote for independents. But party lists are no good when independents are not permitted to be included and party lists omit independents and outsiders.

    Party bosses want to keep outsiders away. Party bosses do not want outsiders within the party to be listed, they want them silenced, snuffed out and shut down.

  11. Google, the party bosses of the Green Party and Libertarian Party have
    viciously opposed the United Coalition. Despite the fact that the party
    bosses of the CA State Green Party and the national Libertarian Party
    censored our 2012 POTUS campaigns by bullying and de-linking the sites from the
    national sites, as a Libertarian Party POTUS candidate in 2012, James Ogle
    won the only primary (Missouri) which allowed Libertarians on the ballot
    with 52.7%.

    Ogle’s 52.7% victory was due to the unifying message of PPR. Yet despite
    the victory, James Ogle was denied speaking before the convention’s attendees by
    the rules, by those in charge of the political convention.

    The Missourian Newspaper
    http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/145021/libertarian-primary-choice-describes-himself-as-outsider-in-own-party/

    Independent Political Report
    http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2012/02/james-ogle-edges-uncommitted-to-win-missouri-libertarian-presidential-primary/

    Join the team that’s bringing the new unity phenomena of PPR
    that’s sweeping the world!
    http://www.allpartysystem.com/one.php
    * * *

  12. Party bosses want to shut down new ideas so they can create a list which denies equal free speech time and equal treatment before they ever hear what the new nominee had to say.

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