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.

Nine South Dakota legislators have introduced SB 95, which would let candidates for federal and state office get on a primary ballot by fee instead of by petition. The lead sponsor, Senator Ernie Otten (R-Tea), is the Senate Majority Whip, and the House Majority Whip, Representative Jim Bolin (R-Canton) is also a sponsor. All nine sponsors are Republicans.

The filing fee would be 1% of the salary of the office. The salary for South Dakota Governors is $107,121, so the fee would be $1,071.

If this bill were enacted, minor parties would be advantaged. Current law requires members of newly-qualifying parties to submit a petition of 250 party members, in order to get on that party’s primary ballot. Most new parties barely have that many registered voters, and the time for getting these signatures is short. Consequently, for the last eight years, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party (the only ballot-qualified minor parties during that period) have not had gubernatorial nominees. Because the law removes parties from the ballot when they fail to get 2.5% for Governor, they always go off the ballot, and must re-petition every four years.

On January 27, U.S. District Court Judge Janet C. Hall enjoined Connecticut’s ban on out-of-state circulators. Libertarian Party of Connecticut v Merrill, 15-cv-1851. The 17-page opinion says “the Party is substantially likely to succeed on the merits of a facial challenge to the statutues at issue”, so even though a final decision on constitutionality has not been issued yet, in the meantime anyone from outside Connecticut may work, and the signatures cannot be invalidated just because the circulator is not a Connecticut resident.

The ACLU handled this case. UPDATE: here is a news story.