The Illinois Green Party will have candidates for the U.S. House in 14 of the 19 districts this year. Some were nominated in the party’s primary in February, and others were nominated by party meetings. Because the Green Party is ballot-qualified, it is easy for the party to run candidates.

There are normally few minor party and independent candidates for the U.S. House in Illinois. Illinois requires petitions for independent candidates, and for the nominees of unqualified parties, equal to 5% of the last vote cast. Comparing the states on how minor and new parties get on the ballot for U.S. House, Illinois has the second most difficult law in the U.S., after Georgia. For independents, however, North Carolina is also worse than Illinois.

The Green slate of 14 U.S. House candidates is the largest number any party (other than the Democratic and Republican Parties) has run in Illinois since 1924. Illinois has 19 districts. In 1924, when Illinois had 25 districts plus two at-large U.S. House members, there were 24 Socialist candidates.

This interesting analysis shows that Barack Obama is currently leading the delegate count for the Democratic presidential nomination, but that if Democrats used “winner-take-all” in all states, Hillary Clinton would be leading in delegates.

Rochester, Minnesota’s daily newspaper, the Post-Bulletin, ran this story on April 7 about the Independence Party’s convention for the First U.S. House District. The story is notable because it shows that former Congressman Tim Penny is still active with the party, and also it shows that Frank MacKay (national chair of the Independence Party) is still working to build the party, although with a focus on 2012, not 2008. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this story.