Here is a list of candidates who filed to run for office in Chicago’s non-partisan February 2015 election. There are three citywide offices: Mayor, City Clerk, and Treasurer. For City Clerk, only two candidates filed; for Treasurer, only one candidate. Candidates for each citywide office needed 12,500.
All petitions in Illinois are deemed valid, unless anyone challenges. Even a petition that obviously doesn’t have enough signatures is acceptable if there is no challenge. The list of candidates posted above will almost certainly shrink after challenges are filed and adjudicated.
There are a lot of alderman candidates (252 if I counted correctly) for 50 wards, or almost 5 per ward. That’s a lot more than most city elections isn’t it?
Why not challenge a few Republicans over their challenges of Libertarians?
Those lists certainly do look like a pile of winner-takes-all projects which will lead to nowhere. I’m so glad I dumped my interest in such elections twenty plus years ago.
They’re a total waste of time!
With 50 Wards, sounds like Chicago has it’s own “United States.” Of course, I’m sure these Wards are all “one man one vote” in design, not like our United States Senate. At least with 50 Wards, it would appear that each member represents several thousands citizens.
Also, had asked in another reply, how many signatures were required to file for a Ward. No one never replied. But here is where members of 3rd parties (including Independents) ought to qualify for the ballot.
And, does anyone know the pay of the Ward members?
I’ve never seen a study of the number of candidates for city council in large cities in the U.S. However, in San Francisco, when the incumbent doesn’t run for re-election, there are frequently a dozen or more candidates. It would be interesting to see how many of the 50 aldermen incumbents are running for re-election.
City elections in Chicago are nonpartisan, and most of the candidates are Democrats. If you can find some Republicans who have filed for the ballot, that would be an achievement in itself.
In the 25th Ward the “Chicago Socialist Campaign”, a coalition of several Chicago socialist groups like the Chicago Socialist Party, Socialist Alternative, Solidarity, International Socialist Organization, community groups, and unions like CTU, AFSCME and SEIU are running Jorge Mujica as an open socialist candidate for Alderman.
http://www.votemujica.org/
I’m not a Socialist, but you give an example of what many “smaller conservative 3rd parties” in the United States ought to do. When you agree on more core issues than you disagree on, it just makes good common sense to “hold your nose” and work together.
But many small conservative 3rd parties in the United States would rather never even obtain ballot position for their candidates, let alone have a chance for victory, if someone suggests they start working together.
It’s something they call “PRINCIPLE.” Some of them are so “principled” they are “paralyzed.” If they would work together on those core issues they do agree on, they would have a much better chance of at least having an influence on the outcome of the election.
And because of this “principle” some of these small conservative 3rd parties do not exist any more. Their hardheadedness gets them what they deserve.