The village of Broadview, Illinois, held an election on April 9, 2003, for village offices. An independent candidate for Village President, Princess Dempsey, sued the Village Clerk after the election because the Village Clerk, the evening before the election, made a telephone “robocall” recording, and then used the town’s reverse-911 system to phone every voter. The Clerk’s robocall identified herself as an election official, and said that the plaintiff was not a legitimate candidate, that she had been removed from the ballot, and that if the voter voted for Dempsey the vote would be a “lost vote.”
On November 10, 2016, the Illinois State Appellate Court, First District, ruled that the candidate’s lawsuit has merit and that the lower state court (which had dismissed the lawsuit) should re-hear the case. The State Appellate Court said it appears the clerk had violated the candidate’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Here is the 24-page decision. It says the clerk’s action was state action and the clerk may be personally liable for damages.
The Clerk had acted in a hostile manner even before she made the robocall. When the candidate submitted her ballot access petition, the clerk took the petition home with her and showed it to one of the other candidates for the same office. The other candidate challenged the petition, and the Village Electoral Board ruled the petition insufficient. The clerk was on the Board and voted to disqualify the petition. The candidate then went to the lower court, which put the candidate back on the ballot. The vote for Village President was: Judy Brown-Marino, Better Broadview Party, 350 votes; Sherman Jones, Broadview First Party, 925 votes; Norlander Young, Democrat, 249 votes; and the plaintiff, an independent candidate, 131 votes.
ALL hacks must be sued for damages in ALL election law cases — to bankrupt them as examples for other HACKS.
The election was April 9, 2013, not April 9, 2003.
The (former?) city clerk Maxine Johnson has just qualified a petition to impose term limits on village officials. The petition had originally been rejected by the the village electoral board on a 2-1 vote as being ambiguous. The dissenter was Judy Brown-Marino, the candidate that Johnson was allegedly helping in 2013.
“Chairperson Judy Brown-Marino dissented, saying she showed the referendum to constituents, who all understood the proposal to mean anyone who has already twice served as village president would be prohibited from serving in that office a third time after April 4.”
As is typical in Illinois small-town politics, new parties are created every election. This avoids having to nominate by primary. In some towns, the “new party” chooses a name with the same initials as an “old party” that has become defunct. This permits the Peyton Place Party, Petty Patroon Party, and Parsley Peppermint Party to run as the PPP, without having to print new signs, and without opening their nomination process.
Broadview doesn’t appear to use the same initialisms, but the parties change with every election. Brown-Marino has had mixed success in the past, winning election as a trustee, but losing in her bidd to become president. It appears that the term limits initiative is directed at the current president, and would limit him to two terms. If he were re-elected and the initiative passed he could not serve the third term.