On April 21, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, a Clinton appointee, orally described substantial relief she intends to order for minor party and independent candidates for the Illinois 2020 election.  Candidates will need 10% of the original legal requirement.  The petition deadline is extended from June 22 to August 7.  Signatures can be obtained on a signer’s computer via an electronic signature, although the candidate or party must then print out the results and transport a piece of paper to election officials.  The order is being drafted but does not yet exist on paper.

UPDATE:  here is a new story in the Herald & Review, the daily newspaper for Decatur.

Also, if a minor party was on the ballot in either 2016 or 2018 for an office that is up in 2020, then it is automatically on the ballot for those same offices in 2020.  This means that the Libertarian and Green Parties are now on the ballot in 2020 for President and U.S. Senate with no petition.  Also the Green Party is now on the ballot automatically for two U.S. House seats, the fifth and twelfth districts.  Unfortunately there were no third parties on the ballot in either 2016 or 2018 for any legislative seats.

The case is Libertarian Party of Illinois v Pritzker, n.d., 1:20cv-2112.  Statewide candidates for president and U.S. Senate, other than Libertarians and Greens, will need 2,500 signatures.

The state had said that it could not live with a deadline as late as August 7, but the judge still said she intends to order it.  The minor party petition in Illinois was due in early August in all the years 1931 through 1999.  Before 1931, it was in September, and it was in October from 1891 through 1929.

The basis for the order is that Illinois law requires independent and minor party petitions to circulate between late March and late June, a period of time entirely within the health crisis period.  If Illinois didn’t ban circulating petitions before late March, it would have been in a better legal position.  Before 1985 Illinois minor party and independent candidate petitions could be circulated as early as desired.  UPDATE:  here is a one-page statement from the court saying some relief is being granted, the details of which will be described on paper shortly.

According to this article, the Wisconsin Election Commission, the legislature, and the Governor, have so far shown no interest in doing anything about mandatory ballot access petitions.  Except for independent presidential petitions, all petitions are due June 1, for both the August 11 primary and the general election.

The Wisconsin Election Commission advises candidates to use postal mail to send blank petition forms to potential signers.  Yet the U.S. District Court decision from Michigan of April 20 included a fairly lengthy section explaining why that doesn’t work.

No candidate in Wisconsin needs more than 2,000 signatures, although the petition for a new qualified party needs 10,000 signatures.

Colorado election law lets candidates of large parties choose whether to get on the primary ballot by winning substantial support at a party meeting, or petitioning.  Candidates must decide in January of an election year which method to use.

Michelle Ferrigno Warren, a Democrat, running for U.S. Senate, decided to use the petition method, which requires 10,500 signatures.  The petitioning period runs from late January through March 17.  Due to the health crisis, she was not able to collect enough signatures.  She filed a lawsuit in state court, Warren v Griswold, which is pending in Denver District Court.