By Dave Dahl
SPRINGFIELD – There’s more out there than just Republicans and Democrats, as hard as they might try to squeeze out the “other” political parties.
Tuesday is the first day for the “third parties” to pass petitions – and good luck doing that during the “stay home” order.
Steve Suess, chairman of the McLean County Libertarian Party, says the establishment could be well served to make it easier for the others.
“Whoever loses that election has a pretty legitimate case that the election results are illegitimate because candidates were not given a path to the ballot,” said Suess.
The alternate parties must collect 25,000 to the Democrats’ and Republicans’ 5,000. The rule of thumb is to collect twice the amount you need because of petition challenges.
And Rich Whitney, co-chairman of the Illinois Green Party, says the combination of the petition-passing schedule and coronavirus calls for some exceptions to be made.
“Our history demonstrates that under normal circumstances we have been able to get the 50,000 petition signatures that we need to get on the ballot. It shouldn’t be too difficult to grant us a waiver or other reasonable allowance,” adding the Libertarians should get the same consideration.
The State Board of Elections has thrown the idea to state lawmakers, and who knows when they’ll be back.
Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]
