U.S. District Court Upholds Illinois 5% Petition for Independent U.S. House Candidates

Posted on by September 22, 2026

On September 21, U.S. District Court Judge Franklin Valderrama, a Trump appointee, upheld the Illinois 5% (of the last vote cast) petition requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House. Sigcho-Lopez v Illinois State Board of Elections, n.d., 1:26cv-9156. The plaintiff, a Chicago city councilmember, had submitted 17,304 signatures to meet a requirement of 10,816 signatures. He fell 1,222 signatures short because the invalidity rate was high. It is extremely common for validity rates for petitions to be high if the office is a district office. A large number of signatures invariably are from voters who live outside the district, especially when the district is not compact and has jagged boundaries.

The only state interest cited by the judge is the need to avoid crowded ballots and to “protect the integrity of elections.” But the decision does not discuss the meaning of a “crowded ballot.” Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions discuss that, but the decision does not cite either one. In Williams v Rhodes, the concurrence by Justice Harlan says that having eight candidates on the ballot for a single office does not cause a ballot that is likely to confuse any voter. In Lubin v Panish the Court defined a crowded ballot as one with at least a dozen or two dozen candidates for the same office.

Illinois has not had a U.S. House general election with more than four candidates on the ballot in the entire history of the 5% petition requirement (except in 1996, the 7th district had five candidates). It is bizarre that any sincere person can believe that Illlinois is in danger of crowded general election ballots for U.S. House.

The decision also upholds the 90-day window for collecting the signatures, the law that won’t let primary circulators work for general election candidates, and the notarization requirement. Here is the opinion.

The decision says that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ independent petition requirement for district office of either 3% or 5% of the last vote (depending on the office), but does not say that Texas law capped all independent petitions for district and local office at exactly 500 signatures.

Comments

U.S. District Court Upholds Illinois 5% Petition for Independent U.S. House Candidates — 9 Comments

  1. Did a lot of illegals and other deoortables sign? ICE should probably check out the names and addresses.

  3. ONE MORE ANTI-DEMOCRACY JUNK OPINION SINCE 1776.

    SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL —- 1954 BROWN V BD OF ED

    NOW – SINCE ONLY EXTREMIST PRIMARIES COUNT —
    ALL MINORITY VOTERS IN A GERRYMANDER AREA SHOULD RUN AS LOCAL MAJORITY/PLURALITY CANDS IN SUCH PRIMARIES

    NOW – ONLY ABOUT 5 OF 50 STATES ARE D/R MARGINAL MAJORITY.

    OTHER 45 ARE ALMOST HOPELESS COMMIE DONKEY OR FASCIST ELEPHANT
    —
    PR
    APPV
    TOTSOP

  5. “A large number of signatures invariably are from voters who live outside the district, especially when the district is not compact and has jagged boundaries.”

    Judging from their totalitarian response, “Report and Deport” has clearly never been done any ballot access petitioning nor has any interest in helping voters have more than one choice on their ballot. From my experience, Richard Winger is 100% correct; quite a few registered voters who are initially interested in signing ballot access petitions for district offices end up being out of district when asked whether they live in district. I suspect Sigcho-Lopez’s petitioning crew didn’t ask that all important question enough, hence the high invalidity rate. It might be tempting given the unconstitutionally huge numbers of signatures required of minor party and Independent candidates, but being hasty when petitioning is not always the best strategy.

  6. You have no idea what I have and have not done. Ridding the country of illegal criminal invaders is not totalitarian. It’s actually helping prevent totalitarianism because unfortunately many population replacement turd colored turd worlders bring the totalitarian values of their home countries and cultures with them and continue to as they or their offspring become US voters.

    There is no conflict between what I said and what Winger said. Some of the signatures are just out of district. Some are not valid for a variety of other reasons.

    And with a name like Lopez would you really be surprised if signatures were collected from and by Spanish speakers with no citizenship verification?

    A list like that should be valuable to ICE since most people put their current addresses. There will no doubt be many deportables there.

    The more deportables actually get deported, the further we get from totalitarian government.

    Report and deport!

  7. I’m glad you have the sense to admit that at least some of the signatures are likely out of district. Unfortunately, the rest of your post sounds like something out of 1930s Germany; I’m less worried about any totalitarian leanings of some of the migrants who come here, and more worried about the home grown totalitarianism that has already sprung up here over the past few decades from people born here to US citizen parents.

    Given ICE’s tendencies to arrest/harm first and ask/believe citizenship later, your idea of giving ICE access to petition lists would make things even more difficult for third party and Independent candidates. Many citizens who aren’t white and far-right would refuse to sign petitions for fear of eventual harm coming to them, and said far-right folks wouldn’t sign for anything but Republican/Trump supported candidates anyway. What a convenient way indeed to further transition our country to a one party system…

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