Illinois held its primaries on March 17, 2026. In Massac County, the Constitution Party is a ballot-qualified party, so a primary was held for it. The party is only permitted to nominate for partisan county office. It is a qualified party in Massac County because in November 2024, its nominee for County Commission-at-large, Tim Pearcy, polled 11.8%. The race also had a Republican and a Democrat running. Illinois lets a party that polls at least 5% for a countywide office be a qualified party within that particular county.

At the March 17 primaries, the Constitution Party ballot was chosen by only one voter.

Massac County has a population of approximately 12,000. It is on the southern border of Illinois, against the Ohio River, adjoining Kentucky.

An initiative is circulating in Massachusetts for a top-two system. See the text here. If the initiative passed, minor parties would almost never be ballot-qualified. Current law says a qualified party is one that polled 3% for any statewide race, or which has registration of 1% of the state total.

No party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, has ever held as much as 1% of the registration in Massachusetts. So if the initiative passed, a party could only be ballot-qualified if it could poll 3% for president. And even if it did poll 3% for president, after the next midterm election, it would lose its status.

The chief proponent for the initiative, Jesse Littlewood, told me that his initiative does not lower the difficult petition requirements for candidates because his group was afraid that if the initiative did improve the petition requirements, that would violate the single-subject rule. He also said that he had not heard about any unhappiness with the California top-two system in connection with the 2026 gubernatorial election.

On March 31, U.S. District Court Judge Philip Brimmer issued an opinion in Colorado Republican Party v Griswold, 1:23cv-1948. Existing law says that parties must let independents vote in their primaries. It also says that if a party which otherwise is entitled to a primary doesn’t want a primary, it is free to nominate by party meeeting. But, existing law says the party can’t switch to nomination by meeting unless three-fourths of the delegates to the state party convention agree.

The decision says the three-fourths provision violates Freedom of Association. Assuming the decision is not overturned on appeal, this probably means that parties can decide what type of nomination process to use by majority vote.