On April 30, Dr. David Gill, an emergency room physician, said he will be an independent candidate in 2016 for the U.S. House in the Illinois 13th district. He had been the Democratic nominee for U.S. House in the 15th district in 2004, 2006, and 2010, and he had been the Democratic nominee in 2012 in the new 13th district.

See this story, which explains why he has left the Democratic Party. When he was the Democratic nominee in 2012, the party leadership opposed him but he won the primary anyway. In the 2012 general election, he lost to Republican Rodney Davis by only 1,002 votes. The old 15th district in the 2000’s decade included Champaign, Bloomington, and much of east central Illinois. After the 2011 redistricting, the new 13th district still includes Gill’s home area of Bloomington, but otherwise it is a very different district, extending to the west, all the way to the Mississippi River, and including Springfield.

Gill considered running as an independent in 2014, when he would have needed 15,205 valid signatures. For 2016, he will need 10,514. The number is lower because turnout in 2014 was much lower than in 2012.

New Hampshire election law says anyone can be on a presidential primary ballot who pays a fee of $1,000 and fills out a Declaration of Candidacy. However, the Declaration of Candidacy since 1983 has said, “I am a registered member of the (fill in the blank) party.”

The literal language of the New Hampshire requirement that the candidate be a registered member of the party has never been applied, because 20 states don’t have registration by party. Walter Mondale, the Democratic nominee in 1984, was not a registered Democrat because Minnesota has never had registration by party (and, if it did, Mondale would have been a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party). Bill Clinton was not a registered Democrat for the same reasons; neither was Al Gore. Among Republicans, neither George H. W. Bush nor George W. Bush was a registered Republican because Texas doesn’t have registration by party.

So, in practice, the affidavit doesn’t mean what it says; what it does mean is that the candidate must hold himself out as a member of the party. See this story. It will be interesting to see how Senator Bernie Sanders handles this situation. Even though he has announced that he intends to run in Democratic presidential primaries, he has not said that he a Democrat, and he lists himself in the Congressional Directory as an independent. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

On April 29, the Florida legislature passed SB 228 Committee Substitute, which lets individuals register to vote on-line. Here is the text of the bill. The process is entirely electronic for applicants who already have a Florida drivers license or state I.D. card. If the individual does not, then the system prompts the applicant to print out a form, sign it, and mail it in.

The Secretary of State, Ken Detzler, is opposed to the bill. Detzler is appointed by the Governor, Rick Scott. It is not known if the Governor will sign the bill. The bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the legislature.