The long-running challenge to a county board member's candidacy has ended by default.

The Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge to the petitions of Urbana Democrat Brendan McGinty, he has learned.

"I am pretty confident things would be positive for us. There is a sense of relief I don't have to pursue it," McGinty said.

The case has a dusty feeling to it since the challenge was to McGinty's run in the Feb. 5 primary, based on incorrect numbering of his petition pages months earlier.

In January, the 4th District Appellate Court stayed Champaign County Judge Tom Difanis' order to remove McGinty from the ballot, then reversed his decision.

Difanis had reversed a November ruling by the Champaign County Electoral Board keeping McGinty on the board after a challenge to the petition.

The objection, filed by Richard Reynolds of Urbana, who was represented by Champaign lawyer Ruth Wyman, was that four of the five McGinty petition pages were numbered page one, when state law requires the sheets "be numbered consecutively."

Urbana attorney Andrew Bequette represents McGinty. He argued that the numbering question is a technicality, and that keeping McGinty off the ballot does not serve the interest of voters. In the primary, McGinty went on to defeat University of Illinois student Devan P. Cowsen.

In November, McGinty faces Urbana's Mike Lehman of the Green Party.