June 23 was the Illinois petition deadline for independent candidates, and candidates of unqualified parties. Besides the 49,000 signatures turned in by the Libertarian Party, and the 52,000 turned in by Ralph Nader, there were also petitions submitted by the Constitution Party and the New Party. Illinois is the only state in which someone can get on the general election ballot with a petition that is below the legal minimum. However, this only happens when no one challenges a petition that is below the legal minimum. The Constitution Party and New Party petitions don’t have as many as 25,000 signatures, so they will wait to see if they are challenged. The New Party presidential candidate is John Joseph Polachek of Chicago.

Another unique Illinois law requires unqualified parties to file a complete slate of candidates. This means that, this year, they must run somone for U.S. Senator if they are also running someone for president. The Libertarian and Constitution Parties followed this law, but the New Party did not include a candidate for U.S. Senate, so that is another basis on which the New Party petition could be challenged. This Illinois law is probably unconstitutional, however.

Cindy Sheehan, who hopes to be the first independent candidate for U.S. House on the California ballot since 1996, has 3,500 signatures as of June 23. She needs 10,198 valid, by August 8. The Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party have endorsed her, as has Cynthia McKinney. She is running in the 8th district, which includes most of San Francisco. The only parties that have nominated someone for that seat are the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties.

Eugene Platt, Green Party nominee for South Carolina State House (115th district) will ask the Election Commission to place him on the November ballot, at an administrative hearing on Friday, June 27. His ballot status is threatened because, after he was nominated by the Green Party in convention, he was defeated in the South Carolina Democratic primary. South Carolina law seems to say that someone who wins one party nomination, and tries and fails to win another nomination, cannot be listed on the November ballot. On the other hand, there is a plausible theory that the law only applies to candidates who first lose a party nomination in one party, and then only afterwards obtains the nomination of another party. Generally, states can ban “sore losers”, but Pratt isn’t a “sore loser” because he won his first nomination battle. He also won the nomination of the Working Families Party. South Carolina does permit two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate.

For more about this, see here. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalReport for this news.