Next steps for Illinois elections: Independent candidate filing, filling established party vacancies

[July 06, 2022]  By Greg Bishop | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – With last week’s primary election results to be certified later this month by the Illinois State Board of Elections, the window is now open for independent candidates to get on the November ballot.

The window is also open for local Democratic and Republican parties to place candidates in races where they didn’t have any for the primary.

Last week’s primary was just for the Democratic and Republican party candidates. Matt Dietrich with the Illinois State Board of Elections said Tuesday opened the filing period for new, independent and non-established political parties.

The signature threshold is much higher than for the Republicans or Democrats.

“The thinking behind the statute that set those is that you want to make sure since these candidates are going to go directly onto the November ballot, you want to make sure that you have legitimate candidates, candidates who have some degree of support, so that you don’t end up with 50 candidates in the governor’s race or more,” Dietrich told The Center Square.

One example Dietrich gave is that established party candidates only needed 3,250 signatures to get on the ballot for a statewide office. New party or independent candidates must get 25,000.

The filing period for such candidates ends at 5 p.m. July 11.

In some primaries across the state, Democrats and Republicans didn’t have a choice on their ballot last week. But, a candidate could still be placed for that party for the November election.

In Sangamon County, the Republican incumbent Sheriff Jack Campbell didn’t have a GOP opponent in last week’s primary. There wasn’t a Democratic primary. But, there could be a Democrat placed on the November ballot by the party.

“I know I did my job, I worked hard, I passed petitions, got my signatures and did it the right way to get on the ballot and I would hope that anybody that’s going to seek such an important office as Sangamon County Sheriff would have done that same thing,” Campbell told WMAY.

Dietrich said it’s up to the local Democratic and Republican parties to place a candidate in such races across the state where the parties didn’t run a candidate for the primary last week.

“They still have to file nominating petitions for whoever they’re going to slate into that position, but they have until July 25 to do that,” Dietrich said.

The signature threshold for such Republican and Democratic candidates is the same for those who were just on the primary ballot last week.

Greg Bishop reports on Illinois government and other issues for The Center Square. Bishop has years of award-winning broadcast experience and hosts the WMAY Morning Newsfeed out of Springfield.