According to this story, objectors to the Illinois presidential primary petitions of Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Larry Cohen, and Rocky De La Fuente have withdrawn their objections. That means those four candidates will definitely be on the Democratic presidential primary ballot.
The only challenges still pending are to Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. The latter two are not based on insufficient signatures, but on constitutional qualifications to be President.
Ralph Nader has this interesting analysis in TIME of the ramifications of a possible Mike Bloomberg presidential candidacy.
Famous statistician Nate Silver uses the Nolan chart to discuss the past and present positions of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Bloomberg. The Nolan Chart was developed by Libertarian Party founder David Nolan, decades ago, and is a two-dimensional analysis of anyone’s political ideology.
The Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court will hear Straw v Illinois State Board of Elections, 2016-CH-227 on Monday, February 8. The issue is whether Illinois petition procedures violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, as applied to physically disabled individuals. The plaintiff, Andrew Straw, is seeking to be on the Republican primary ballot for U.S. House. He was required to get several hundred signatures. He cannot stand or walk for more than a few minutes without severe pain. He is willing to show that he has voter support, and points out that the law could be amended to allow for on-line petitioning.
Illinois is one of a minority of states that requires all primary candidates to submit petitions.
On January 27, U.S. District Court Judge Yvette Kane refused to enjoin three Pennsylvania ballot access restrictions that apply to primary petitions. In Pennsylvania, all candidates need petitions to get on a primary ballot. Benezet Consulting v Cortes, m.d., 1:16cv-74. The seven-page decision says that it would not be fair to change the rules now. Primary petitioning started January 26. The opinion says that there are 1,400 primary petitions circulating, and that if any of the three restrictions were enjoined, that would cause confusion.
The three challenged laws were already declared unconstitutional last year for general election petitions. They are the ban on out-of-state circulators, the requirement that each petition sheet be notarized, and the requirement that voters may only sign for one candidate per office.
The decision says that the plaintiff first contacted state election officials to ask about the rules on October 22, 2015, and that he should have filed the lawsuit last year. The case was filed on January 14, 2016.
Just before the Pennsylvania decision came out, the attorney for the plaintiff notified the judge of the Connecticut order enjoining the ban on out-of-state circulators. But the Pennsylvania decision does not mention the Connecticut case.
