Thomas Rudd is the Lake County, Illinois Coroner. He is trying to run for re-election this year as an independent candidate. No one argues that he lacks enough valid signatures, but he is not on the ballot because he first submitted a petition to run in the Democratic primary late last year. But later he withdrew that petition and did not actually run in the Democratic primary. He has a court hearing on July 21 to try to get back on the ballot. See this story.
Richard, what do you mean, “His petition has not been challenged”? According to the story, “Rudd then turned in nomination petitions in June to run as an independent, but Donnenwirth and Turner again filed formal objections to the paperwork.”
Also, I think two separate things are in play here: While the sore-loser law that prevents one from running as an independent, or candidate of another party, after losing the primary may be unclear on withdrawals, it seems clear that filing his first petition legally affiliated him with the Democratic Party, and I would think that would disqualify him from running as an independent during the lock in period anyway.
Thank you, Timothy. I re-write the post to make it clear that no one challenged the validity of his signatures.
Thanks Richard. Most often, the best challenges are ones that don’t involve signatures. A challenger may be able to knock off a few signatures here and there; but if they successfully object to something in the header or footer, such as page numbering or notarization, they can knock off en entire page of signatures. Even better, if they successfully object to something in the front matter, such as the statement of candidacy, then they can invalidate the entire petition.