On October 30, the Illinois Senate voted unanimously to override Governor Pat Quinn’s veto of HB 723. Thus, the bill becomes law. It makes it more difficult for ballot-qualified parties to nominate candidates, after the February primary (the nation’s earliest Congressional primary in history) is over. Existing law lets ballot-qualified parties nominate by party meeting, if the primary didn’t produce a nominee. The new law still permits this, but says such nominees need a petition.

Most observers feel the bill was motivated by the fact that the Green Party became a fully-qualified party in November 2006. Major party legislators in Illinois are not accustomed to having a qualified party on the ballot (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties), and they are certainly not accustomed to having minor party or independent candidates running against them. The only parties, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, that have been fully ballot-qualified in the last 80 years have been the Green Party currently, and the Illinois Solidarity Party 1986-1990.

The petition for unqualified parties to run candidates for the legislature is 5% of the last vote cast, so generally, during the last 70 years, there have been very few minor party candidates on the general election ballot for legislature.

Candidates for Illinois primaries need petitions to get on the primary ballot, and those petitions are due November 2, 2009, for the 2010 elections.

This New York Post story of October 30 says that Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York city and former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has called on New Jersey independent gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett to withdraw from the race, to enhance the prospects of the Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey in next week’s election.

This story analyzes how states with September primaries for Congress are reacting to the new federal law that requires states to mail foreign absentee ballots no later than 45 days before any federal election.