Judge removes 5 GOP McLean County Board candidates, including Board Chairman McIntyre, from June primary ballot

BLOOMINGTON (WEEK) - Five Republican candidates for the McLean County Board, including the incumbent board chairman, won’t be on the June primary ballot because they failed to number pages of their nominating petitions.

A judge on Wednesday overturned the McLean County Electoral Board’s ruling, meaning the candidates’ names won’t be on the primary ballot, but that does not exclude them from running in the November general election.

Some local Democrats challenged petitions from District 1 incumbent board member Catherine Metsker, County Board Chairman John McIntyre and Hannah Blumenshine - both from District 5, Vicki Schultz in District 8, and Annette Fellows in District 9.

The electoral board, composed of representatives from GOP-controlled county offices, voted to keep the candidates on the ballot. Lawsuits followed claiming “Illinois courts have consistently held that the failure to number any pages of a nomination petition invalidates the petition.”

The lawsuits also stated specific reasons the law requires pages of the nominating petitions to be numbered.

“It allows people to identify specific pages of a petition and to refer to information contained thereon by reference to a page number. It also prevents tampering, thereby preserving not only the integrity of the petitions submitted but the election process in general,” the lawsuits said.

One of the petition challengers was Shayna Watchinski, a county board member who’s not running for reelection.

Watchinski released a statement Wednesday evening.

“Republicans of McLean County are finally being held accountable. Whether they believe a law is “petty” or not, they still have to follow it. We should be questioning why a partisan election board defied the law in order to benefit their Republican colleagues.”

Attorney Jim Ginzkey, representing the five Republicans, said four of them have told him they will be mounting write-in campaigns for the June 28 primary.

Ginzkey said appealing Judge Jonathan Wright’s decision to a higher court is not a viable option because the appeals process takes too long.

Judge Wright is from Logan County, but he heard the cases because McLean County judges indicated they had potential conflicts of interest.

The McLean County Republican Party can slate the candidates to run in the November general election.

McLean County GOP Chair Connie Beard released a statement late Wednesday evening.

“Members of the Democratic party of McLean County sought to remove from the ballot five Republican candidates for our county board, supported by voters of their district. A bipartisan Election Commission ruled to retain the candidates on the ballot. The Democratic representatives moved to appeal that decision. In a second hearing, not numbering a handful of petition pages was deemed sufficient reason by the Circuit Court Judge to remove all five candidates from the ballot. Nothing was gained by this action. Time and tax dollars spent to remove candidates was such a waste as there are options available to the candidates and our Republican Party to make sure they are still on the ballot in November. It was apparent that since two of their own party candidates had the same errors on their petitions, this course of action was not an exercise in election integrity but just the same old petty partisan politics. Voters are looking for candidates that will serve them with integrity and not play the same tired political games.”

Besides Watchinski, the Democrats filing the petition challenges were Jill Blair, Anna Darrow, Cara McMorris, and Sarah Breeden.

Blair ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2018 challenging Republican State Rep. Keith Sommer. They were all represented by Springfield lawyer Gregory Moredock.

Copyright 2022 WEEK. All rights reserved.