United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

June 21, 2020 

By the Court 

No. 20-1961 

LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF ILLINOIS, et 

al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

WILLIAM J. CADIGAN, individual 

member of the Illinois State Board of 

Elections, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellants.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 20-cv-2112 

Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, 

Chief Judge. 

O R D E R 

Appellants, individual members of the Illinois State Board of Elections (the 

“Board”), ask this court to stay enforcement of the district court’s preliminary injunction. 

We deny the motion because the Board has not shown that it would be irreparably 

harmed by injunctive relief that it initially agreed to and because staying the preliminary 

injunction at this late date would result in clear harm to the plaintiffs who have relied on 

its terms. 

On April 3, 2020, the Libertarian Party of Illinois, the Illinois Green Party, and 

several individuals who wish to run for state or federal office in the November 2020 

election or vote or gather signatures for independent candidates, sought injunctive relief 

in the district court. They sought to enjoin or modify Illinois’s signature collection 

requirements for independent and third-party candidates in light of the public health 

emergency caused by the novel coronavirus COVID-19 and Governor Pritzker’s 

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emergency executive orders that effectively shut down the state. In its briefing, the 

Board agreed that some relief was warranted due to the pandemic. It proposed delaying 

the filing deadline by two weeks until July 6, 2020, and reducing the signature 

requirement first to 50% and later to 33% of the number required by the Illinois Election 

Code. After several hearings with the district court’s emergency judge, the parties 

reached agreement and submitted a proposed order, apparently drafted by the Board. 

The district court noted that a court considering a challenge to state election laws 

must carefully balance “‘the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights 

protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate’ 

against ‘the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden 

imposed by its rule,’ taking into consideration ‘the extent to which those interests make 

it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights.’” Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434 (1992) 

(quoting Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789 (1983)). The district court said it did not 

need to devote significant attention to constitutional questions, however, because the 

parties “proposed an order that grants appropriate relief in these unprecedented 

circumstances.” Opinion and Order at 7-8. The district court found that the combination 

of restrictions on public gatherings imposed by Governor Pritzker’s shelter-at-home 

order, which started at nearly the same time as the window for gathering signatures, and 

the in-person signature requirements in the Illinois Election Code was “a nearly 

insurmountable hurdle for new party and independent candidates attempting to have 

their names placed on the general election ballot.” Id. at 7. The district court concluded 

that the parties’ agreed order would ameliorate plaintiffs’ difficulty meeting the 

signature requirement while accommodating the state’s interest in ensuring that only 

parties with measurable public support will gain access to the 2020 general election 

ballot. The district court adopted the parties’ proposed order as the preliminary 

injunction. Entered on April 23, 2020, the preliminary injunction addressed four main 

points: 

(1) Plaintiff political parties are permitted to nominate candidates without 

petitions in any race in which they had nominated a candidate in either 2016 or 

2018, and the three individual candidates are permitted to appear on the ballot for 

any office they qualified for in 2016 or 2018 without a petition; 

(2) New political party and independent candidates not subject to item (1) are 

required to file nomination petitions signed by not less than 10% of the statutory 

minimum number required; 

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(3) Petition signers are permitted to affix their signatures to a petition 

electronically, by using a computer mouse, a stylus, or their finger; and 

(4) The statutory petition filing deadline is moved from June 22, 2020, to August 7, 

2020. 

Despite agreeing to each of these terms, the Board filed a motion to reconsider on 

May 8. It argued that after consulting with local election officials, it believed the later 

filing deadline would impact its ability to conduct an accurate and orderly election. It 

asked the district court to amend its preliminary injunction order and direct the Board to 

establish appropriate ballot access requirements for independent and new political party 

candidates. Alternatively, the Board asked the court to move the deadline for candidate 

nomination and petition filings from August 7 to July 6 and set the minimum petition 

signature threshold at 25% of the statutory minimum. On May 15, after a hearing, the 

district court granted the motion in part; it moved the deadline for candidate nomination 

and petition filings to July 20, but denied the motion to reconsider in all other respects. 

 The Board then waited until June 6, a Saturday, to file its notice of appeal. On June 

9 it asked this court to stay the preliminary injunction order, as modified on May 15, and 

to drastically expedite briefing. Although Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8(a)(1) 

says a “party must ordinarily move first in the district court” before seeking a stay 

pending appeal, the Board did not do so. It argues that moving first in the district court 

would be impractical, see FED. R. APP. P. 8(a)(2)(A)(i), because the district court already 

denied its request to be allowed to establish appropriate ballot access requirements. 

When deciding whether to enter a stay, this court must consider four factors: “(1) 

whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the 

merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether 

issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the 

proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.” Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 

(2009). 

The Board argues that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal because the 

district court exceeded its authority when it dictated how Illinois must conduct its 

elections. We are mindful that the Constitution grants states “broad power” to conduct 

elections. Art. I, § 4, cl. 1; see Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581, 586 (2005). As relevant to 

this case, however, a state’s broad power also encompasses the ability to agree to the 

terms of a preliminary injunction. The Board also argues that its recent receipt of 

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nominating petitions from twelve Republican and Democratic candidates shows that the 

statutory ballot access requirements do not categorically exclude third-party candidates 

from the ballot. But this is the type of new evidence that should have been presented to 

the district court in the first instance. 

Despite the Board’s initial agreement to the injunction, the possibility that it 

would suffer irreparable injury absent a stay gave us pause. We ordered a supplemental 

expedited submission from the Board so it could explain with precision and with 

references to supporting evidence what irreparable harm it believes will result absent a 

stay, and directed the appellees to respond. In its supplemental submission, the Board 

provides more details about specific election deadlines, particularly that Illinois is 

required by statute to transmit requested absentee ballots to military and overseas voters 

at least 45 days before the election. See 52 U.S.C. § 20302(a)(8). The Board submitted two 

consent decrees entered after Illinois election officials failed to meet this deadline in 2010 

and 2013, and argues that the terms of the preliminary injunction significantly increase 

the risk of another adverse action by the Justice Department. 

We find the Board’s arguments and evidence insufficient to demonstrate that it 

will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay. After independent candidates submit their 

petitions, currently due on July 20, voters have five days to object to a candidate’s 

nomination papers and the Board must then hold a hearing. The Board says it has 

historically taken as long as five weeks to resolve voter objections, and relies on a 

declaration by Steve Sandvoss, the Board’s Executive Director. But neither Sandvoss nor 

the Board provide specific examples or evidence to support this assertion. The Board 

also relies on declarations from two Illinois county election officials. These officials said 

that, based on their personal knowledge and professional experience, the lower 

signature threshold will lead to an increased number of non-viable candidates and 

petition objections and it is unlikely that all candidate objections will be resolved in time 

for timely printing of ballots, thus impeding their ability to meet the deadline for 

transmitting ballots to military and overseas voters by the September 18 statutory 

deadline. Notably, the three declarations were prepared in support of the Board’s 

motion for reconsideration when the petition deadline was August 7, two weeks later 

than the deadline the Board seeks to stay, and are based on the officials’ experiences with 

elections unaffected by a global pandemic. Further, the Board was aware of the 

September 18 deadline for mailing military and overseas ballots when it agreed to the 

terms of the preliminary injunction and there is no evidence that Illinois’s previous 

difficulty meeting the deadline was the result of later petition deadlines. And as the 

appellees point out in their supplemental submission, at least 37 states have candidate 

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filing deadlines later than Illinois’s current July 20 deadline, and routinely comply with 

the deadline for mailing military and overseas ballots. We conclude that none of the 

evidence submitted by the Board shows that the July 20 filing deadline or the reduced 

signature requirement is likely to impede election officials’ ability to meet the deadline 

for transmitting ballots to military or overseas voters. 

In contrast, the appellees have provided evidence showing that they would be 

significantly injured if we stayed the preliminary injunction. First, the injunction 

eliminated the petition requirement for Green Party and Libertarian Party candidates in 

any race in which the party had nominated a candidate in 2016 or 2018. As a result, those 

candidates have not gathered signatures and would be unable to do so by the statutory 

petition deadline. Second, other independent candidates are in the process of collecting a 

lower number of petition signatures in reliance on the preliminary injunction. Five of 

these candidates prepared declarations saying they would be excluded from the ballot if 

they were required to collect a larger number of signatures as a result of current 

restrictions on public gatherings and voters’ reasonable apprehension about close 

contact. These difficulties are furthered by the lack of adequate notice from the state. 

The Board asserts in its motion for stay that it, “not the federal court, is in the best 

position to determine the necessary election modifications that will balance the rights of 

candidates to access the ballots with the public interest in limiting the field of candidates 

to avoid ballot confusion.” But nowhere in its motions papers does it explain what, if 

any, changes it would make to the statutory petition requirements to ensure that 

independent candidates are not excluded from the ballot. Nor does it acknowledge the 

serious safety concerns and substantial limitations on public gatherings that animated 

the parties’ initial agreement and persist despite some loosening of restrictions in recent 

weeks. The Board has not made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits 

of its appeal, given its initial agreement to the terms of the preliminary injunction. It has 

also failed to show that the balance of harms favors a stay. Accordingly, the motion for 

stay is DENIED. 

In light of this ruling and the approaching petition deadline, the parties shall file 

by July 6, 2020, statements of position addressing whether further briefing or oral 

argument are necessary. 

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