Last year, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sued Illinois over some ballot access restrictions, while he was still an independent presidential candidate. His lawsuit, which challenges restrictions on who can circulate petitions, is still alive. The state has argued that it should be dismissed as moot.

On February 5, the attorney for Kennedy asked the U.S. District Court to take note of two recent opinions that came out since the Illinois case was argued. The two cases are the Bost decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that came out on January 14; and the Cornel West ballot access decision from North Carolina, which came out on January 23. See the filing here.

Arizona bills SB 1425 and HB 2022 are almost certain to pass the legislature. The House passed it unanimously on February 2 and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed it unanimously on February 4. They move the non-presidential primary from the first Tuesday in August to the next to last Tuesday in July. The bill takes effect this year. Because candidates are already circulating petitions, the bills say that petitions are not invalid just because they say that this year’s primary is August 4 (under the bills, the primary will be July 21). UPDATE: the Senate passed the bill on February 5.

Assuming the bills become law, the deadline for a petition to create a new party moves from late November to mid-November of the odd year before the election year, a deadline that is almost certainly unconstitutional. No other state except Utah has a deadline to create a new party that is in the odd year before the election year.

The Oklahoma initiative petition for a top-two system is being checked for validity. The Secretary of State, not the State Elections Board, checks initiative petitions. The Secretary of State’s office estimates we won’t know for at least five more weeks whether I-836 has enough valid signatures. Oklahoma does not use random sampling for petition validity. Instead, every signatures is checked.