On April 8, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy extended the non-presidential independent petition deadline from June 2 to July 7. He also said that independent candidate petitions can gather electronic signatures. He also moved the primary for president and all other office from June 2 to July 7. See this story.

The independent presidential petition continues to be due July 27. Statewide independent petitions in New Jersey are 800 signatures and a partisan label is permitted other than just the word “independent.”

According to this story, on April 8, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon asked the legislature to quickly legalize electronic signatures for candidate petitions. Minnesota does not have statewide initiatives. Also, candidates seeking a place on a primary ballot don’t need signatures. So this proposal mostly affects ballot access petitions for minor party and independent candidates.

On April 7, proponents of a statewide Illinois initiative, which has already collected a substantial number of signatures, filed a lawsuit asking that the initiative procedure for 2020 be altered, due to the health crisis. The Complaint seeks a cut in the number of signatures by 50%, electronic signature gathering, and an extension of the petition deadline from May 3 to August 3. Morgan v White, n.d., 1:20cv-2189. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Charles Norgle, the same judge who has a case asking for petitioning relief for minor party and independent candidates. Thanks to Sam Cahnman for this news. Here is the Complaint.