On September 19, the plaintiffs in the Illinois ballot access lawsuit filed this brief. Team Kennedy v Illinois State Board of Elections, n.d., 1:24cv-7027. The plaintiffs are trying to overturn the law that won’t let individuals circulate a minor party or independent candidate petition if they had earlier in the year circulated a petition for someone running in a primary. The plaintiffs are also fighting the state’s claim that the lawsuit is moot.

Besides Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s campaign, the plaintiffs include an independent candidate for U.S. House, and the Illinois Libertarian Party.

Here is a Virginia sample ballot for the election of November 4, 2025. Virginia has always used office-block ballots, although the state has a discriminatory policy on the order of candidates. The Republican and Democratic nominees are always at the top.

On September 19, North Dakota filed this brief in Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v Howe, 25-253. This is a case over legislative redistricting. The Eighth Circuit had said the lawsuit couldn’t proceed because it had started when the Turtle Mountain Band had filed under the federal Voting Rights Act, section 2, but that the Eighth Circuit thought that private groups can’t file under that law; only the federal government could institute such lawsuits. No Circuit had ever before come to that conclusion.

The North Dakota brief acknowledges that the U.S. Supreme Court will need to settle this important issue, but suggests that the Court should not take this case. But it says if the Court does take it, he hopes the Court will decide by December 31, 2025, whether to take it, because the state needs to know in order to prepare for the 2026 election.