On January 25, Sylvester “Junebug” Hendricks filed a lawsuit in Illinois Circuit Court in Cook County, seeking to be placed back on the ballot as a candidate for Alderman, 5th district of Chicago. He had been removed from the ballot on December 23, 2010, on the grounds that the post office where he has his post office box is not in the 5th district; instead it is in the 9th district. See this story.

Illinois election law section 10 ILCS 5/3-2(b) says “A homeless individual must have a mailing address in order to be eligible to register to vote. For purposes of this Act, a mailing address shall constitute a homeless individual’s residence for voting purposes.”

Hendricks argues that he does regularly sleep at a particular address that is in the 5th district. He also points out that no one lives in a post office box. See here for the Board of Election Commissioner’s findings that he may not run in the 5th district.

A Vermont Superior Court will hear oral argument in Trudell v Markowitz, 612-8-10-WN, on February 3. This is the case that challenges Vermont’s new early petition deadline for independent candidate petitions. Last year the legislature moved the deadline from September to June. At the same time, the legislature moved the primary from September to August.

The plaintiff, Paul Trudell, had tried to be an independent candidate last year for U.S. House of Representatives. He would have appeared on the ballot if the deadline had not been moved. Courts in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, have all ruled that independent candidate petitions (for office other than president) cannot be earlier than primary day, or the day before the primary. There are no contrary precedents, except that in Washington state the 9th circuit refused to strike down a deadline that was a month earlier than the primary, but that decision was based on the fact that no plaintiff-candidate in that lawsuit had been injured by the early deadline.

Two South Carolina State Senators have introduced S282, which changes the mandatory size of ballot access petitions from 8.5-inch by 14-inch paper, to 8.5 inch by 11 inch paper. This is a worthwhile idea, because candidates and parties have trouble distributing petition blanks via the internet to their supporters at home, because most home printers can’t cope with 14-inch paper very well. The sponsors are Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) and Senator Michael Rose (R-Summerville).