An independent congressional candidate struggling to get his name on the ballot dropped out of the race.
David Gill of Bloomington challenged the state requirement that independent candidates collect 10,754 signatures.
"It's one thing to collect 740 signatures as the Democrat and the Republican are required to do, it's a whole other thing to do 15 times that," said Gill. "It was an extremely arduous, demanding process."
A U.S. district court judge ruled he should nonetheless be allowed to run. But that was nullified by a Court of Appeals panel. Gill then requested U.S. Supreme Court justices to intervene, but they declined.
Gill has previously run for Congress as a Democrat; most recently losing to Republican Rodney Davis in 2012.
