As has been previously reported, on August 9 the Robert F.. Kennedy, Jr. campaign, and the Illinois Libertarian Party filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois to stop the petition challenges to the two presidential candidates.  The objectors didn’t name or serve the individual candidates for presidential elector.  The federal lawsuit argues that because the true candidates are the presidential elector candidates, the objections should be invalid.  The lawsuit also challenged the Illinois law that doesn’t permit circulators to work on an independent or minor party petition if they had earlier that same year worked on a primary petition for a Republican or Democratic candidate.

On August 23, the last brief was filed, so the case is ripe for a decision.  The plaintiffs’ reply brief is focused on the part of the case that doesn’t permit circulators to work on general election petitions if they had worked on primary election petitions.  This part of the case is especially salient now that the State Board has even extended the prohibition to work done outside of Illinois.

On August 23, a hearings officer for the Illinois State Board of Elections ruled that petitioners who circulate for a Democratic or Republican candidate in another state are not eligible to circulate an independent or minor party petition in Illinois that same year.  But, circulators who worked on an independent or minor party petition in another state can then work on an independent or minor party petition in Illinois that same year.

No other state tries to prevent a circulator from working because of that circulator’s activity in another state the same year.  Petitioning is First Amendment activity, and the ruling begs for a lawsuit to overturn it.  But because the hearings officer also determined that the petition at issue, the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. independent petition, still has enough valid signatures, there will be no  lawsuit this year.

The hearings officer ruled that Kennedy has 33,286 valid signatures, which is more than the required 25,000.  Many of Kennedy’s Illinois petitioners had worked for him in other states, and so their work was valid.  A smaller number of signatures which had been gathered by Kennedy’s Illinois petitioners in other states this year for various Democratic and Republican presidential primary petitions are not valid.

Here is the report of the hearings officer.

Here is the appendix to the report, which contains the conclusion that some type of out-of-state work doesn’t matter, but other types do matter.  The Appendix says on page 40 that the fact that Kennedy was registered as a Democrat in New York does not disqualify him from being an independent candidate in Illinois.  On pages 74-76, it says that the fact that he may have given a false address does not disqualify his petitions, because the address was not sworn to.  On page 78 it says the fact that Kennedy is a minor party nominee in certain states does not disqualify him from being an independent candidate in Illinois.