Politicians Impose More Restrictions on Write-In Candidates

Just when you thought you couldn’t think of anything worse that Springfield politicians could do, you find something more outrageous than whatever turned you off last time.

It used to be that if you wanted to run as a write-in candidate, for precinct committeeman, for instance, you just asked your friends to write-in your name.

Mike Royko used to do a column almost every election reciting how many times Mickey Mouse was written in.

The write-ins were a way to show disgust for the politician in question.

Politicians don’t take well to ridicule.

So, the politicians decided a person had to register his or her intentions to run a write-in campaign. Mickey and Donald Duck would have a hard time meeting that requirement, they reasoned.

This coming year could have found Goofy a formidable candidate in Democratic Party primaries.

The politicians made you say you were going to run a write-in campaign by the Friday before the Tuesday election.

The politicians also changed the law to require that you get as many votes as you would have had to get on a petition to get on the ballot. I wonder who was threatened by allowing on person to gain an office by writing himself in when no one else had filed.

But that still provided too open a process, so the politicians said you had to sign up at least a week in advance.
Now, the newest outrage against citizen politicians.

The Naperville Sun reports that write-in candidates have to file their intention to run such a campaign 61 days before the election. (Thanks to Capitol Fax Blog for the tip.)

The Will County Clerk figures that is December 6th.

Like next week.

Can someone come up with something more outrageous than that?

All legislators representing McHenry County vote for the bill. Democrat Jack Franks was even one of the alternate chief sponsors.

The vote in the House was 106-1. The vote in the Senate was 38-1-1.

House sponsors were Elaine Nekritz, Bill Black, Tim Schmitz, Jack Franks, LaShawn Ford, Barbara Flynn Currie, John D’Amico, Julie Hamos, Sid Mathias and John Fritchey.

Senate sponsors were Terry Link, James Meeks and Susan Garrett.

Senate Bill 662 is its number.

It appears to be the bill used to make most changes in the election code. During debate no one mentioned the change in write-in requirements.

It was short, rather than full debate, meaning maybe two people at most got to speak on each side of the question.


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