On September 22, 2017, the Seventh Circuit struck down the Illinois law requiring newly-qualifying parties to run a full slate of candidates. However, no Illinois legislator has introduced a bill to repeal that law, and the deadline for introducing bills this year has now passed. The State Board of Elections did not ask the legislature to introduce such a bill.

Thus Illinois joins the ranks of other states in which certain election laws have been struck down, but the legislature does not amend the statutes to take the decision into account. Other states with this characteristic at this time are Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, and especially Pennsylvania. When a state behaves this way, innocent would-be candidates and others read the election code to understand the law, but the election code misleads such individuals because it isn’t in sync with actual policy.

According to this story, Wyoming businessman David Dodson will be an independent candidate for U.S. Senate this year. He will need 5,036 valid signatures, not easy in Wyoming, which has the smallest population of any state.

J. David Lashar, a high-ranking official in the Maryland Health Department, will seek the Libertarian nomination for U.S. House, 3rd district, according to this story.

In 2016, the Libertarian Party did not contest this seat. The 2016 vote was: Incumbent John P. Sarbanes, Democrat, 214,640; Republican Mark Plaster, Republican, 115,048; Green Nnabu Eze, 9,461.