The Champaign County state's attorney says the law is unclear when it comes to handling candidates who withdraw from an election after ballots have already been sent to overseas and military voters.
Champaign County Board member Stephanie Holderfield lost the nomination for circuit clerk in last month's primary to Rick Winkel by 240 votes, despite Winkel withdrawing from the race more than a month before.
Winkel then declined the nomination, leaving the decision of who would be the Republican nominee for the November election up to the party's precinct committeemen. Katie Blakeman of Champaign was chosen as the nominee last week.
State's Attorney Julia Rietz says it's interesting that people voted for Rick Winkel, even though he made it clear that he was dropping out of the race.
- Hear from Julia Rietz.
Rietz says the State Board of Elections' recommendations to County Clerk Gordy Hulten were from an old case that no longer applies to today's election process.
She says a new law needs to be drafted to update the election code so that it's clear what an election authority should do if a candidate withdraws after ballots are already printed.
Rietz made the comments on Friday's edition of "A Penny for Your Thoughts" on NewsTalk 1400 WDWS. Click here [2] to listen to the full interview with Rietz.
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Thank you. :)
"Rietz says the State Board of Elections' recommendations to County Clerk Gordy Hulten were from an old case that no longer applies to today's election process."
So now Julia Rietz knows more about election law than the State Board of Elections? Well then, why don't we just do away with the SBOE and refer all matters of elections to "Queen Rietz"? How ridiculous! This is exactly why the SBOE exists, for the purpose of deciding election questions!
Yes, the State Board of Elections are the politically appointed committee of 4 Democrats, and 4 Republicans with 4 from downstate, and 4 from Cook County that should have an opinion on it. They are the experts on election questions. They know Illinois politics better than a local elected official.
It’s interesting that a very similar case to the Winkel/Holderfield Debacle arose not too far from here when IL State Rep. Roger Eddy “Winkeled out” of the 110th House District race on 3-6-12, which made it too late for his name to be removed from the 3-20-12 primary ballot. The difference there, though, was that most of the County Clerks in the affected counties simply followed the advice of state elections chief Rupert Borgsmiller, and didn’t count any of the votes for the candidate, Eddy, who’d “Winkeled out.” (The County Clerk from Crawford County actually did count the votes for Eddy, but they were then tossed out by the state Elections Board when the results for the district were certified.) Here are links to a couple of stories on the other counties’ versions of the Winkel/Holderfield Debacle:
http://mywabashvalley.com/fulltext?nxd_id=238002 [11]
http://herald-review.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/votes-for-eddy-won-t-be-counted-tuesday/article_14a47e9a-6df1-11e1-8503-001871e3ce6c.html [12]
Interesting, isn’t it? The whole situation in the 110th IL House District seems to have been a complete non-issue, despite its similarity in basic structure to the Winkel/Holderfield Debacle that occurred here! Roger Eddy “Winkeled out,” and none of the votes for him were reported in the final certification, yet life went on as usual, and nothing seemed amiss! Apparently, none of Sgt. Hulten’s overseas voters or absentee voters caused a huge ruckus when they found out that those who’d voted on election day had the benefit of “Winkeled out” notices in their polling places to help spare them the embarrassment of voting for a candidate that was no longer eligible to take office. And, likewise, if any dirty-tricks operatives felt that a ballot spot of a “Winkeled out” candidate had been “wasted” by not using it as an opportunity to demolish the candidacies of whatever other legitimate candidates remained (so that a back-room, political insider’s replacement candidate could crawl out of the woodwork and be given the coveted spot on the November Republican ballot), they apparently have yet to make a big public stink about it!