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         June 30, 2010        

Sherman challenges Nominating Petitions
of candidates running in 2010 General Election

Rob Sherman Advocacy has expanded into yet another arena of fighting injustice, one victory at a time.

On Monday, I filed documents with the Illinois State Board of Elections, in which I challenged 13 sets of Nominating Petition papers that have been submitted by a total of 5 different persons who seek to be on the November, 2010, ballot in Illinois.  If the State Board upholds my challenges, these five individuals will not be on the November ballot.

Four of the persons that I challenged each submitted one set of Nominating Petition papers.  The fifth person submitted nine sets of Nominating Petition papers:  three different sets of papers to be on the ballot for one federal office and six sets of papers to be on the ballot for a total of five different state offices.

Gregg Moore filed one set of papers to run for Governor and for Lieutenant Governor.  I challenged his papers because only one individual is named -- Gregg Moore.  The failure to nominate two individuals (one as Governor and one as Lieutenant Governor) renders the Nomination Papers insufficient and invalid.  In addition, Mr. Moore did not submit anywhere near the number of signatures of duly registered voters required by state law 10 ILCS 5/10-3 in order to appear on the ballot.

Stephen F. Estill also filed one set of papers to run for Governor and for Lieutenant Governor.  I challenged his papers for exactly the same reason that I challenged Mr. Moore's papers:  Failure to nominate two individuals for two offices and failure to submit the required number of valid signatures of registered voters.

Carl E. Officer filed one set of papers to run for United States Senator as the candidate of the Practical Party.  I challenged his papers because state law 10 ILCS 5/10 requires that a new party must submit a full slate of candidates (U.S. Senator, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller and Treasurer).  As a longtime supporter of ballot access, I welcome Mr. Officer to run as either an independent candidate or as the candidate of a new political party.  However, if you want to imply that you are the candidate of a party, this purported party must submit a full slate of candidates to demonstrate that it is real and not fictitious.  I am not going to allow a candidate to fake it and corrupt the election process by falsely implying that he is part of a larger group, when no such group exists.  If you are running solo as an independent candidate, that's fine as far as I'm concerned.  You just can't embellish your stature by pretending that you are the representative of a political party, when there is no such political party.  A representative of Free and Equal told me, yesterday, that they assisted Mr. Officer in the preparation of his nominating papers in which he purports to represent the "Practical Party."  Shame on "Free and Equal" for trying to perpetrate this fraud on the people of Illinois.

Anthony Robert Martin-Trigona filed one set of papers to run for United States Senator as Andy Martin, candidate of the Illinois Reform Party.  I challenged Mr. Martin-Trigona's papers for two reasons.  First of all, Martin-Trigona ran for U.S. Senate in the 2010 Primary Election as a candidate of the Republican Party.  He lost!  Numerous "sore loser" provisions of the Illinois Election Code, at 10 ILCS 5/7-61 (Paragraph 13), 10 ILCS 10/3 (Paragraph 8), 10 ILCS 17-16.1 (Paragraph 4) and 10 ILCS 18-9.1 (Paragraph 4), provide that, if you lose in the Primary, you can't run for the same office as an independent candidate or a candidate of another political party in the General Election.  Otherwise, why even bother having a primary?  That's not fair to the the winner of the Primary who is the Political Party's nominee, to have the vote of Party members split in the General Election between two of the Party's candidates.  Secondly, I challenged Mr. Martin-Trigona's papers for the same reason the I challenged Mr. Officer's papers:  Failure of the purported "Illinois Reform Party" to submit a full slate of candidates.

Then, there's the very weird case of some guy named Christopher Pedersen.  Mr. Pedersen submitted papers to run for one federal office and five state offices.  He filed three sets of nominating papers to run for United States Senator.  He filed a set of nominating papers to run for Governor and Lieutenant Governor.  Then, he filed a second set of nominating papers to run for Governor and Lieutenant Governor.  In addition, he filed separate sets of papers to run for Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller and Treasurer.  I challenged all nine sets of his papers.

Mr. Pedersen filed three sets of papers to run for U.S. Senate as an "Independent Conservative," making it unclear as to whether he is running as an independent who is conservative, or as the nominee of the Independent Conservative Party.  If he is running as an independent, then he can't have "Conservative" also listed on the ballot.  That would constitute electioneering in the voting booth.  Nobody else is allowed to say, on the ballot, whether they are conservative (a bad thing), a liberal (a really good thing) or a moderate (a mushy thing), so for Mr. Pedersen to be allowed to announce his political persuasion in the voting booth, that would be unfair to the other candidates for Senator.  If, on the other hand, he is purporting to be the nominee of the Independent Conservative Party, his nominating papers are insufficient because that Party did not submit a full slate of candidates.

Mr. Pedersen filed two sets of papers to run for both Governor and Lieutenant Governor.  Here, too, he said that he was running as "Independent Conservative."  Just as with Mr. Moore and Mr. Estill, Mr. Pedersen did not say which of the two offices he was running for.  In addition, there was the previously mentioned problem with the vague mention of "Independent Conservative."

Then, Mr. Pedersen filed one set of papers for each of the offices of Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller and Treasurer.  I challenged each of those sets of Nominating Petitions for failure to submit a required Statement of Candidacy, failure to submit a receipt for the filing of a required Statement of Economic Interest, and the failure to submit anywhere near the required number of signatures of duly registered voters in support of his candidacy.  In addition, three of these four sets of Mr. Pedersen's papers claimed to be either for the General Primary Election or for the Primary Election, rather than for the General Election.  The fourth set claimed to be for the "Nov" election, without specifying a day or year of the election, as is required by state law.

None of these challenges are frivolous nor without merit.  If you are going to run for public office to be the person who controls the spending of billions of our tax dollars and to be the person who establishes policy that millions of residents must comply with, then you need to demonstrate at least a minimal level of competence by getting your nominating papers right.  There are plenty of election law attorneys available for a surprisingly modest fee to make sure that your papers comply with the requirements of state law.  Even I was able to afford one of those attorneys when I ran for State Representative in 2006 and 2008.  If you can't even get your Nominating Petition papers right, then you probably can't do the job that you're running for.

Also, none of these challenges are for minor, technical errors, such as listing the pages of your Nominating Papers as Pages 31, 32, 33, 35, 36 and 37, where you inadvertently skipped the number, 34;  or where you list the Pages as 32, 33, 34, 34, 35 and 36, where you listed Page Number 34 twice.  To me, that sort of thing is an insignificant, inconsequential oversight, such as a typo, that any person could make, regardless of how competent one is.

The issues that I challenged are issues of substance, that reflect on the judgment of the candidates and the competence of the candidates to be able to do the job, if elected.  These candidates failed that test and should be thrown off the ballot.  

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