The Illinois Green Party’s ballot access case Tripp v Scholz now has a U.S. Supreme Court docket number, 17-1129. If the state wishes to respond to the cert petition, it must due so by March 14. The case concerns ballot access for the legislative candidates of unqualified parties. In 2016, Illinois was one of three states that had no third party candidates for the legislature on the ballot (not counting a handful of states that didn’t have legislative elections in 2016). The other two were North Dakota and South Dakota.

The Opelika-Auburn News, a daily newspaper in Alabama, has this story about the rules for an independent candidate to get on the ballot in that state. Alabama and New Mexico are tied for having the nation’s most restrictive petition requirement for statewide non-presidential independent candidates, 3% of the last gubernatorial vote. No one has done the Alabama statewide petition since 2000.

On February 12, Nebraska State Senator Bob Krist switched his party registration from independent to Democratic. He had filed a lawsuit on February 1 against the 10% petition requirement for non-presidential independent candidates, but it appears that lawsuit will now be dismissed. He plans to seek the Democratic nomination for Governor, instead of being an independent candidate for Governor. Thanks to Mark Elworth for this news.