David Gill v. Charles Scholz, 962 F.3d 360

In 2015 Gill ran as an independent for Illinois’s 13th Congressional District; the Illinois Election Code required independent congressional candidates to submit signatures equaling 5% of the prior election turnout (10,754 signatures for IL‑13).
Gill filed ~11,350 signatures; after ISBE review and an SOEB hearing examiner ruling, only 8,491 were found valid, leaving him ~2,000 short and excluded from the 2016 general ballot.
Gill and third‑party voters sued ISBE and SOEB alleging First and Fourteenth Amendment violations; district court initially granted a preliminary injunction but it was stayed on appeal and dismissed as moot; case returned for summary judgment.
The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, concluding it was bound by this court’s decision in Tripp v. Scholz, which upheld Illinois’s signature rules in different factual circumstances.
The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded, holding the district court failed to perform the fact‑intensive Anderson‑Burdick balancing required by Supreme Court precedent.
The court emphasized important factual differences from Tripp: Tripp involved state‑house races with much smaller signature burdens and cited candidates who qualified under post‑redistricting numerical thresholds (e.g., 5,000 signatures), whereas Gill faced the 5% rule in a large, rural congressional district.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court properly resolved Gill’s constitutional challenge to Illinois’s 5% signature requirement without a case‑specific Anderson‑Burdick analysis	Gill: the 5% rule imposed a substantial burden given IL‑13’s population/geography and must be evaluated factually under Anderson‑Burdick	ISBE/SOEB: Tripp controls; Illinois’s signature rules are reasonable and not a severe burden	Reversed and remanded; district court must conduct a fact‑intensive Anderson‑Burdick balancing rather than mechanically apply Tripp
Whether Tripp’s precedential examples (candidates who qualified) are comparable to Gill’s situation	Gill: Tripp relied on examples from post‑redistricting numerical thresholds, not the 5% rule at issue here, so those examples are inapposite	Defendants: Tripp’s findings about the burden generally support upholding the law here	Court: Tripp’s cited examples were materially different (post‑redistricting numerical thresholds); reliance on them was misplaced and does not foreclose a fact‑specific inquiry

Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983) (establishes flexible balancing test for election restrictions)
Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992) (applies Anderson and explains severe‑burden scrutiny)
Tripp v. Scholz, 872 F.3d 857 (7th Cir. 2017) (upheld Illinois signature rules in state‑house cases; relied on post‑redistricting examples)
Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181 (2008) (courts must identify and evaluate state interests; avoid perfunctory review)
Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279 (1992) (third‑party ballot access is constitutionally protected)
Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173 (1979) (independent candidates’ ballot‑access rights)
Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351 (1997) (states may enact reasonable election regulations to prevent disorder)
Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724 (1974) (states need substantial regulation of elections to ensure order)