Do signature requirements really chill candidate participation in Cook County judicial primaries?

According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, there are currently 45 candidates seeking one of the 13 countywide vacancies in Cook County. Sixty-three other candidates are vying for one of the 20 Cook County subcircuit vacancies. Some of these hopefuls will withdraw, others may be removed from the ballot after challenges.

This surprises me.

Why? Well, though much has been made about the onerous requirement of 3,322 valid signatures to qualify as a countywide judicial candidate in next year's Democratic primary, there are 3.46 candidates for each countywide vacancy -- and only 3.15 candidates for each subcircuit vacancy. It takes only 1,000 signatures to qualify as a subcircuit candidate. One might think, therefore, that there would be more subcircuit candidates per vacancy than countywide candidates per vacancy. That does not seem to be the case this year.

Since challenges are coming for a number of these hopefuls (or, as one persistent, and usually unpublished, commenter keeps saying, "Winter is coming") these ratios may be different when the dust settles.

So I decided to look at recent history to compare candidate numbers.

According to the ISBE, there were 26 candidates seeking one of 10 countywide vacancies in the 2018 Primary -- 2.6 candidates per vacancy. Eighty-four candidates sought one of 29 subcircuit vacancies in 2018 -- 2.89 candidates per vacancy. Subcircuit filing requirements were the same in 2018 as in this cycle, but there were 3,758 signatures required to run countywide in the 2018 Democratic primary.

That's actually worse than this year.

Signature requirements were much less in 2016 -- there was a very low turnout in the 2014 general election; it took only 2,233 signatures to reach the Democratic primary ballot in 2016.

So... logically... there should have been lots more judicial candidates in 2016, at least countywide, right?

Wrong.

Only 25 candidates pursued 11 countywide vacancies in 2016, 2.27 candidates per vacancy. Fifty-six candidates sought 22 subcircuit vacancies in 2016, or 2.54 candidates per subcircuit vacancy.

It took 3,263 signatures to qualify for the Democratic primary as a countywide judicial candidate in Cook County in 2014. Only 21 candidates qualified as candidates for one of the 11 countywide vacancies that year, 1.91 candidates per vacancy. Forty-seven hopefuls sought one of 15 Cook County subcircuit vacancies that year, 3.13 candidates per vacancy.

In 2012, a countywide judicial candidate needed 2,403 signatures to qualify for the Democratic primary. Thirty-two candidates qualified to run for 11 countywide vacancies that year (2.91 candidates per vacancy), while 70 candidates filed for one of the 23 subcircuit vacancies (3.04 candidates per vacancy).

Signature requirements were usually lower in presidential primary years -- because requirements are based on the number of votes cast for the countywide Democratic judicial candidate receiving the highest number of votes in the preceding general election. In Illinois, as elsewhere, turnout is usually lower in non-presidential years than in presidential years. So the high number of signatures required this year is high compared to numbers required in 2016 and 2012, but this year's qualifying number is by no means unprecedented.

So, apparently, at least in recent history, just as in the numbers so far for 2020, there is no great difference in the number of countywide candidates per vacancy vis a vis the number of subcircuit candidates per vacancy. The largest discrepancy was in 2014, a year in which the Cook County Democratic Party did a remarkable job of staving off challengers to about half of its countywide ticket and carrying five of the six contested races.

Signature requirements do not seem to keep wannabes from entering countywide judicial contests.

Conversely, despite lower signature requirements, subcircuit vacancies are not more attractive to candidates than countywide ones. I do not know why this seems to be true. Do you?