This is what I emailed my State Representative, my State Senator, and several other members of the Illinois General Assembly. I think this is the legislation that we should be asking for in Illinois. Thanks, Bill Redpath -------- Original Message -------- SUBJECT: Proposed Ballot Access Legislation DATE: 2023-05-09 18:59 FROM: William Redpath <wredpath2@yahoo.com> TO: "bad@lpillinois.org" <bad@lpillinois.org> ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: William Redpath <wredpath2@yahoo.com> To: ddewitte33@gmail.com <ddewitte33@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 02:53:49 PM CDT Subject: Ballot Access Legislation Senator DeWitte: I am writing to ask for changes to Illinois ballot access laws to make it easier for Third Party and Independent candidates for public office to appear on the ballot. Illinois has some of the most restrictive ballot access laws in this nation. This can easily be seen by looking at the 2022 General Election results. While it is true that the Libertarian Party was able to place a slate of statewide candidates on the ballot, there were 118 Illinois House and 59 Illinois Senate district elections, none of which had a Third Party or Independent candidate on the ballot. While there was one Third Party and one Independent candidate on the ballot among the 17 US House district elections, I do not know if they made the ballot because they gathered a sufficient number of signatures or because they were not challenged. Illinois has the second most difficult petitioning requirement in the nation for US House elections. Except in years that end with the number "2," the signature requirement for Independent and Third Party candidates for US House is 5% of the total votes for that office in the previous election. Only Georgia has a tougher requirement, which is 5% of the number of registered voters in that district. In years that end with the number "2," the requirements are 5,000 valid signatures for US House, 3,000 valid signatures for Illinois Senate, and 1,500 valid signatures for Illinois House. Illinois also has a 5% of the total last vote petition requirement for Third Party and Independent candidates for Illinois House and Illinois Senate. Attached please find an Excel spreadsheet that calculates how many signatures will be needed to get on the ballot for 2024 US House, Illinois House and Illinois Senate elections. On average, it will take about 12,000 valid signatures to be gathered within 90 days in highly gerrymandered congressional districts to place a non-R, non-D US House candidate on the 2024 ballot. To get that many valid signatures means that it will take 18,000+ total signatures to get just one US House candidate on the ballot. It will take an average of about 1,600 valid signatures to get on the ballot for Illinois House, and about 3,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot for Illinois Senate in highly gerrymandered districts. If a non-R, non-D party wanted to run candidates for all US House, Illinois House and Illinois Senate districts in 2024, it would take at least 675,000 total signatures to get those candidates on the ballot. Include a statewide petition to put a presidential ticket on the ballot, and that number will increase to over 700,000 total signatures. The petitioning requirement for 2026 will be even higher due to more people voting in the presidential election year of 2024. Here are the changes that should be made to Illinois election law: #1: Substantially reduce the number of required signatures for candidates to get on the ballot. I will address that with more specificity below. #2: Allow a period for petitioning longer than the current 90 days, which generally runs from late March to late June, along with a later deadline for petitioning. #3: Eliminate the law that states that voters can sign only one petition for a given office for the general election. #4: Eliminate the law that bars petitioners from petitioning for the candidates of more than one political party. The fact of the matter is that most petitioning is done by professional petitioners. This law is in place simply to make it relatively difficult for non-R, non-D candidates to get on the general election ballot, because the best paid petitioners petition for R & D candidates in the primary, after which they are legally barred from petitioning for non-R, non-D candidates to get on the ballot for the General Election. #5: End the petition challenge process and have petition signatures verified by State Board of Elections employees. This is what is done in the vast majority of states. The petition challenge process is a Kafkaesque process by which challengers attempt to terrorize, through large expenses and big hassles, potential candidates off the ballot. It is a political sport to try to kick candidates off the ballot (including Primary election ballots) in Illinois, and that should stop. #6: Create a party petition process. Illinois only has candidate petitions. Illinois is one of eleven (11) states that does not have a party petition process, whereby signatures are gathered to allow a political party to place their candidates on the ballot before those candidates are selected. Neighboring states Missouri and Wisconsin have party petitions with only a 10,000 valid signature requirement that then allows a political party to place candidates on the ballot for any and all offices in that state. #7: Reduce the ballot access retention requirement. Illinois law requires getting 5% of the vote for Governor for a political party to become a fully recognized political party. The median vote retention requirement among all the states is 2%, and that usually applies to any statewide office. #8: Allow changed petition language that does not imply that signers are part of the political party formation process. It is my understanding that Illinois law requires such language. Petition language should be clear that the petition signer is just signing to allow a political party or a candidate to appear on the ballot. #9: Allow multiple turn-ins of petitions to the State Board of Elections, with validity percentage feedback from the State Board of Elections. It is my understanding that current Illinois law allows only one petition turn-in, which often makes parties and candidates gather far more signatures than needed to get on the ballot and generally makes the petitioning process more difficult and uncertain. Attached please find an article on model ballot access legislation from the Harvard Journal on Legislation from 1999. While the article is 24 years old, and some of the information in it is dated (e.g., paid petitioning is much more expensive that $2 per signature these days), the recommendations for ballot access legislation are still appropriate. In summary, the model ballot access legislation calls for: A: A party petition that qualifies a political party to place a candidate on the ballot for all offices in a state by gathering the signatures of 0.1% of the registered voters of that state between January 1 and August 15 of that election year; and B: A candidate petition (for Third Party or Independent candidates) that qualifies them for the ballot by gathering the signatures of 0.1% of the registered voters in their district between January 1 and August 15 of that election year; and C: A political party that qualifies for the ballot by having 0.05% of the registered voters in that state registered with that political party, as per the description in the Harvard model ballot access legislation (although this would not be applicable to Illinois unless party voter registration is enacted in Illinois); and D: A political party qualifies for the ballot if any statewide candidate in either of the two previous statewide elections earns at least 1% of the vote, and, if that does not occur, a political party can place a district candidate on the ballot if its candidate earned at least 1% of the vote in that district's election in either of the last two General Elections. It is my understanding that there is an omnibus election bill being considered in the Illinois legislature this session. I respectfully request you to sponsor and vote for legislation incorporating A, B & D above, or to work to have it included in omnibus election legislation. Please let me know if you will agree to do so. Thank you very much. Bill Redpath 1303 Westley Lane West Dundee, IL. 60118-3545 (703) 864-2132 (cell) wredpath2@yahoo.com