On February 17, the Illinois State Court of Appeals, 5th district, ruled that a candidate’s ballot access petition is valid if it comes close to having enough valid signatures. Jackson-Hicks v East St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, 5-15-0028. The incumbent Mayor of East St. Louis, Alvin Parks, is running for re-election this month, and even though the Board determined that he needed 136 signatures and only had 123 valid signatures, it still left him on the ballot.
One of the mayor’s opponents sued the Board to have the Mayor removed from the ballot, but on January 19 the trial court kept him on the ballot, and now the State Appeals Court has agreed. The person who challenged the Mayor’s petition plans to ask the State Supreme Court to reverse the decision. Mayor Parks had said if he had been removed from the ballot, he would have been a write-in candidate. Thanks to Andy Finko for this news. Here is the opinion.
YES – NO — Close Enough ???
Like being partly pregnant ???
ONE more New Age MORON court opinion or what ???
I suspect that the law was meant to say that a candidate _may_ run as an independent candidate by petition, as opposed to being a party nominee; rather than an independent candidate could get on the ballot with a petition which _might_ have enough signatures.
The East St. Louis Election Board is somewhat of an oddity. In 2012, when there was a referendum on eliminating the board, whose duties would be transferred to the county, the budget of the board was said to be $400,000, while the county thought they could handle it for about $50,000. Proponents, said employees of the board would likely be hired by the county, while the county said that was doubtful, with maybe needing one person.
HB 126 has been introduced this session to eliminate the city board of elections.
That’s an interesting example of bending the rules. If this ruling had happened in 2013, the Illinois Green Party might have been able to use it in its fight to get on the statewide ballot in the 2014 election, as the ILGP petition was short by a similar proportion (about 10%) of signatures. But of course, we would like have been treated to an example of bias and hypocrisy as the state (ie, the Democrats) would have then claimed in effect that it only applies to the Democrats and Republicans, or some other nonsense.
Freedom and democracy folks, freedom and democracy. Not.
I meant likely, not like, in the fifth line of my comment.
The substance of the court decision was that the East Saint Louis Board of Elections was within its discretionary powers as regulatory body.
In addition it was based on the section of the election code for independent candidates.
Does this apply only to the two major parties, or does it apply to 3rd parties and Independents also?