The election considered the BIG ONE by most people is over, but one little one–that for township office–has some significant action coming up soon.
In townships with over 15,000 people where the Republicans or Democrats want to have a party caucus to select candidates, the date to officially inform the Township Clerk is November 11, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections calendar.
If a February primary election is preferred, which took place in Algonquin, Grafton and Nunda Townships in 2017, November 15th is the deadline to notify the County Clerk “that their specific party will nominate candidates by primary election.”
Last time around, McHenry Township Republicans decided to nominate in a caucus.
They allowed anyone who had voted Republican in the last primary election to vote, but gave Republican Precinct Committeemen all the votes from people in their precinct that did not come in person.
To no one’s surprise, the candidates favored by the Precinct Committeemen were nominated.
And those not nominated were angry.
This resulted in an election in which the appointed incumbent Supervisor’s and Road Commissioner’s running as Independents and their continuing in office, which those on the Republican ticket took all of the Township Trustees and the Clerk. (The Assessor ran unopposed as a Democrat.)
The caucus displeased State Senator Pam Althoff that she and State Rep. Barb Wheeler changed the election law to require each person attending future caucuses to have only one vote apiece, thus ending the practice of weighted voting for the elected Precinct Committeemen.
The following advice with regard to obtaining a partisan February primary election was given by McHenry County Clerk Joe Tirio:
First, let me say that this is not legal advice and I am not an attorney. I always suggest the use of a competent attorney as you approach participating in an election.
Second, I would suggest that you download the Candidate’s Guide from the State Board of Elections at the link below. They have made great strides in recent years to improve the guide’s usability. Definitely worthy of any candidate’s time to read.
You can find it here:
For consistency’s sake, I will refer to the page numbers of the document.
– Can you have a Primary? (Yes): Page 3 indicates that the township (since it is over 15,000 population) may have a primary if the Central Committee approves by Nov 15th (60 ILCS 1/45-55)
– How do you make your wish to have a Primary known?: Page 36 indicates that the central committee would need to notify the County Clerk of its intent to have a primary election by November 15, 2020. The guide doesn’t stipulate a document, so you could infer that a form is likely not available. Minimally, I think a dated letter from and signed by officer(s) indicating your intent and when that decision was made would suffice. You may also want to include the question that was being considered, who was at the meeting and how they voted, for a more complete record of the event leading to the decision.
– What about petition circulation and filing dates?: See page 7 of the document and note that the candidate filing is done with the Township Clerk (p. 37).