Borrowed from
Teagan Goddard's Political Wireand expanded on somewhat:
Given the timing of this year's Republican National Convention- pushed into late August, there will be no Republican nominee on the cutoff date which Illinois has set- thus requiring special legislation or a court order to put Mr. Bush on the Illinois ballot.
Apparently, Illinois Senate Democrats have offerred a modification to the law which would allow Mr. Bush to appear on the ballot with a number of other changes to Illinois electoral law such as allowing for the registration of voters up to fourteen days before an elections, but Illinois Republicans have found the offer unacceptable, and will instead try to have their nominee placed on the ballot via court order.
Shame, isn't it? Couldn't we just put Nader on the Illinois ballot and leave the Chimperor off?
June 21st is the petition deadline if the IL GOP wants to make absolutely sure the voters can put a check next to Bush/Cheney in 2004. It'd take 25,000 valid signatures.
"The Republicans will have to go to a federal judge and get a declaratory judgment to get Bush on the ballot," Kris Kray, legislative liaison for the state's election board, said.
That is exactly what may happen, State Senator Wendell Jones (R-Palatine) told IllinoisLeader.com today.
"I think the federal judges would put the President back on the ballot," he said. "[Republican senators] are not going to vote for it when it comes to the floor. We want a bill that puts Bush on the ballot without loading it up."
Last year, legislation to fix the problem was killed by Senate Republicans when they refused to allow the waiver of Election Board fines for politicians and political action committees to be tied to putting Bush on the ballot. The State Board of Elections has since acted on new legislative authority and lowered many fines substantially.
On Sunday night, the Illinois House passed in a 90 to 23 vote language in SB 955 that would allow Bush on the ballot. The amended bill made it out of the Senate committee in a 6-4 party line vote, with Democrats supporting and Republicans opposing.
Note this last little bit of tricky political machination closely. The Illinois Senate Democrats (including Barack Obama, presumptive Senator-elect from Illinois) are allowing the amendation of state election laws which would allow Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to appear on the ballot, and are being accused of "loading it up" by allowing voter registration fourteen days before an election, allowing registration of voters at public-assistance offices, and detailing (in the wake of Florida, 2000) how votes should be counted in cases of hanging, dimpled, or pregnant chads.
But it doesn't serve the interests of the Republican party to let people on welfare register in the offices which administer state public assistance programs, and we all know what the hanging chad issue would have done in the 2000 elections. Perhaps those of us who are Daily Kossacks would be interested in, oh, contacting the powers that be in Illinois, suggesting that if the state Republicans are going to practice obstructionary politics in blocking SB 955, Mr. Bush should only be available as a write-in candidate on the official State ballot in November; as well as writing amicus curiae briefs for the courts, encouraging them to uphold the letter of Illinois law should the Republicans not submit their candidate (or the appropriate number of authenticated signatures) by the date appointed in the law as it is currently enacted.