Macomb, Illinois Alderman Candidate Gets the Most Votes but City Says He Didn’t Get Enough; Candidate Sues

On April 1, Steve Wailand sued the City of Macomb, Illinois, because the city refuses to acknowledge that he won the February 26 election for Alderman, 2nd district. There were only two candidates: Wailand, who got 17 votes, and incumbent Kay Hill, who got 16 votes. The city election rules say that candidates who get a majority in the February election are elected, but if no one got a majority, there is a run-off on April 9.

The city says Wailand didn’t get enough votes to have a true majority. Even though he got 51.51%, the city says “majority” really means one vote more than 50%. However, this policy is not written down anywhere. The case is Wailand v City of Macomb, 9th judicial district, 13MR46. See this story. Here is some commentary about the situation by Ed Woell, who teaches history at Western Illinois University.

Macomb has a population of 22,086, and is in west central Illinois. It has seven wards, and two more aldermen are elected at-large. As it obvious from the vote totals, the turnout was extremely low (3%). Thanks to Phil Huckelberry for the link to the news story.


Comments

Macomb, Illinois Alderman Candidate Gets the Most Votes but City Says He Didn’t Get Enough; Candidate Sues — No Comments

  1. Well, in fairness, it must be pointed out that the city is technically correct: the definition of “majority” is 50% plus one.

  2. #2, my dictionary says a majority is “a number greater than half a total.” Sometimes people use the phrase “50% plus one” but that is just shorthand for the actual definition.

  3. One vote more that 50%? Isn’t that what he got? His opponent got 16 votes, he got 17. 17 is one vote more than 16. Unless they are arguing that 50% of that vote is 16.5 votes and he needed 17.5 votes. In that case, they are going to be laughed out of court.

  4. There was a heavy blizzard in Macomb that day, depressing what would have already been anemic turnout.

    Macomb is the first city I have found in Illinois, except Chicago, which uses an election-runoff model. Everywhere else it is primary-then-election. Consolidated elections are in April so the model used guarantees especially low turnout for municipal elections.

    Macomb is a college town where, if students voted in significant numbers, they could significantly impact local government.

  5. Majority –

    Even total = 1/2 plus 1
    10 >> 5 + 1 = 6

    Odd total = 1/2 and round up
    9 >> 4.5 >> 5

    Difficult only for math morons in small burgs ???

  6. The really important question:At what point do local elections become significant enough to generate a decent turnout?

  7. @#6: That is exactly what the county clerk has argued — as is stated in both the link provided in the entry (from the Chicago _Tribune_) and this one from Tri-States Public Radio:

    http://www.tristatesradio.com/post/raising-questions-about-macomb-election-result

    And @#9: True, that is an important question — but I would say it’s at least equally important to ask the questions Professor Woell did about accountability, or the lack of same.

  8. Were Macomb correct, then Samuel Tilden would have been elected president in 1877, with William Wheeler as vice president.

    This would have been the only time that the president and vice president were from the same state.

  9. #11. Wouldn’t the Hayes-Tilden election (for President) have been left to the House and the election (for vice-President) the Senate, neither group of candidates having received majorities? Hayes won the electoral vote 185-184, but assuming this was not a majority (using Macomb’s logic) Tilden would not have won either.

  10. #12 Tilden would have been elected by the House which had a strong Democratic majority (this was the lame duck Congress elected in 1874) and a 24-12-2 delegation majority. By 1877, the Democrats had gained control of all the southern delegations bur South Carolina and Republicans only controlled ME, VT, RI, MI, WI, MN, IA, NE, KS, CO, NV, and SC. So the House would have elected Tilden.

    The Republicans still had a majority in the Senate, and would have elected Wheeler as Vice President. William Wheeler was a representative at the time, so would have been on the losing side in the House vote for president, but would have been elected by the Senate.

    You might recall that there was a 9-member commission appointed to determine which of the disputed electoral votes to count. This was because of the House-Senate split control. Supreme Court Justice David Davis was to be the 9th member, and was considered to be the most neutral and objective member. It was anticipated that all the votes would be 5-4 or 4-5 depending on how Davis voted.

    The Illinois legislature then elected Davis as senator, and he was replaced on the commission by a Republican justice, and all the commission votes favored the Republicans.

    According to the Macomb officials, this would still have left Hayes and Hendricks 1/2 vote short of the constitutional majority.

  11. the country clerk should be arrested and charged with daralic of job duties. Her job is to look at total numbers and sign in the winner,no hesitation,
    The lawers that bring this case (a non case) to a judge should also be charged and arrested,never to work as a lawyer again or vote again. To bring a case of the voting public to court and try to make new law should be a criminal offense. The judge should hear the case to rule in this manner of criminal crime against the following people, the clerk, lawers that represent the loser, the loser for asking for a new election, none of these people should ever be allowed to work for any part of government again.
    Bill N..

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