Tabitha Tripp, et al. v. Charles W. Scholz, et al.

Whether the cumulative effect of the State’s ballot access scheme—a 5%-minimum signature requirement for new party State Representative candidates, a short 90-day window, with double-petitioning, in a large rural district with population centers split by gerrymandering, and with an every-sheet notarization requirement—is an unconstitutional burden on ballot access, in light of the evidence of the lack of contested elections for State Representative, statewide and specifically in Illinois’s 115th and 118th Representative Districts, and in light of the complete absence of evidence or analysis showing any risk of ballot overcrowding? Is the Seventh Circuit’s position—that the State’s speculative concern for ballot overcrowding is sufficient to outweigh the burdens of the ballot access obstacles demonstrated by Petitioners—in conflict with the positions of five Justices in Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd. and in conflict with the Eleventh Circuit? Whether the Petitioners’ significant evidence of partisan gerrymandering is entitled to some weight when a court reviews a challenge to a state’s ballot access laws and conducts a balancing analysis, even though the Petitioners did not directly challenge the redistricted electoral map?