On March 24, the League of Women Voters of Ohio, and the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute, filed this amicus brief in State ex rel Ohio Democratic Party v LaRose. This case arose when the Secretary of State moved the March 17 primary for president and all other partisan office, to June. The League & the Randolph Institute say there are in support of neither party, but they argue that the Secretary of State cannot freeze voter registration. When the Secretary of State moved the primary, he said no new voter registrations would be processed. Anyone who hadn’t registered by February could not participate in the June primary.

The Texas Secretary of State has ruled that the non-presidential independent candidate petition deadline this year will be August 13. That is because the law says that deadline is 30 days after the runoff primary, and the Secretary of State had already moved the runoff primary to July 14.

However, the Texas presidential independent candidate deadline continues to be May 11, because the law on that deadline does not tie the deadline to the primary date. It seems obvious that if Texas is going to let independent candidates for office other than president submit their petitions in August, there is no valid reason not to let independent presidential candidates have the same deadline. Thanks to Jim Riley for this news.

Illinois law requires candidates for state office (including all three branches of state government) to file Statements of Economic Interest during election years. On March 17, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker issued Executive Order No. 8. Among other things, in section two it suspends this requirement for the next few months. See section 2 in the “therefore” section.

Executive Order No. 5 bans gatherings greater than 50 people.

But no order suspended the need for petitions to get on the ballot. The Illinois primary for all partisan office was earlier this month, and all petitioning for the primary was completed late last year, so there is no longer any need for Republicans or Democrats to petition this year. But minor party and independent candidates circulate their petitions from March 24 through June 22. The Governor has been asked to do something about this problem, but so far he has not even mentioned it, as far as is known. Thanks to Vito Mastrangelo for the link.