McHenry County Blog

Mike Shorten sends the following invitation to the Nunda Township Republican Central Committee’s Candidates’ Night, which will be held this evening from 7 pm to 9 pm at the American Community Bank, 1500 S IL Route 31 in McHenry.

“I’d like to invite you to a Candidate’s Forum taking place this Wednesday at the American Community Bank on Route 31 featuring Republican Candidates on the ballot in Nunda Township for the February 26th primary. I’ll be one of the moderators of the forum and will be speaking as a candidate for Trustee in Nunda Township.

“You can find additional information at our website nundagop.org.

“If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to give me a call directly. I hope to see you there!

“I’m casting a wide net on this so in the event that your geography or political affiliation results in you having a lack in interest in this post, please accept my apologies.

“Please fee free to extend this invitation to your neighbors who this might be of interest!”

The flyer is below:

Central committees of the other townships holding Republican Primary Elections, Algonquin and Grafton, are not holding candidates’ nights.

When I asked who was running for what in Dorr Township, I failed to ask if all the Trustee candidates were running as Republicans.

My mind was so fixated on the Republican primaries in the townships with over 15,000 population that I forgot that the Green Party could hold a primary, too.

That’s because it is an “Established Party” as a result of having received over 5% of the vote when Gus Philpott ran as its candidate for McHenry County Sheriff two years ago.

And, that is exactly what is happening.

Former County Board candidate and Dorr Township Trustee candidate Frank Wedig is running in the Green Party primary for Trustee.

My manual addition of Wedig’s 2012 County Board results shows his getting 2,192 Dorr Township votes.

That’s a lot more than the 837 he received for Township Trustee in 2009.

He lost that race to Joe Evanoff by 158 votes, as you can see lower in this article.

Compare his support in the high-turnout Presidential Election with the 2009 low-turnout local election. Below are the 2009 results for Dorr Township Trustee:

To put Wedig’s potential regional strength in perspective, you can see the final District 5 County Board results for 2012 below:

Democratic Party Chairman Mike Bissett has informed me that Democrats will caucus candidates in Dorr Township.

There will be no primary election for the main Dorr Township offices as the following face no challenger:

• Supervisor Bob Pierce
• Assessor Veronica Myers
• Road Commissioner Tom thurman
• Clerk Quinn Keefe

But for the four Township Trustee spots, six people filed for office:

• John Sheahan
• Mark Andersen
• Christian Cantwell
• Joseph Evanoff
• John K. Fuhler

= = = = = Correction = = = = =

Due to not asking enough questions, I thought that Green Party Chairman Frank Wedig was running in the GOP Primary.  I put that into the original headline from which it has now been removed.  He is again running for Township Trustee on the Green Party ticket.

“I ran for Dorr Trustee four years ago and if my memory is correct, I was some 90 votes short of getting elected,” Wedig emailed me.  “I received some 500 votes.”

= = = = = Correction = = = = =

Andersen, Cantwell, Evanoff and Sheahan are the incumbent Trustees, but my guess is that Wedig has done the most campaigning in Dorr Township.

My manual addition of Wedig’s County Board results shows him getting 2,192 Dorr Township votes.

To put Wedig’s potential strength in perspective, you can see the final District 5 County Board results below:

Wedig is the second high-profile Green Party candidate to leave the Third Party movement.

The first was Scott Summers. He ran as a Democrat in District 6 and placed sixth with four to be elected.

This installment of McHenry County Board member-elect Mike Walkup’s thoughts on township government concerns the political aspect.

THE POLITICS OF TOWNSHIPS

One of the main arguments for the continuation of townships is that the offices of Assessor and Road Commissioner are elected and that township government, being physically smaller than the county, is therefore more accountable to the people via the electoral process.

There is some surface appeal to this argument.

However, it is belied once you look at how the elections for township offices are actually held.

Elections for township office are held every four years in odd numbered years in the Spring.

The next one will be in April of 2013.

The general election portion of the township election coincides with elections for municipal offices and school boards, which are known as the Consolidate Elections.

Voter turnout at Consolidated Elections is invariably low, unless there is some type of taxing referendum on the ballot at the same time.

Typically, turnout in years with no taxing referenda is around 15% to 20%.

If more people are coming in to vote for a taxing referendum, they usually only know about that referendum and are not familiar with the candidates for township offices which they are surprised to see also on the ballot.

They will either not vote for those offices or will guess their way through that portion.

In the more populous townships which have adopted partisan elections, the situation is much worse.

No Democrat has ever been elected to township office in McHenry County so far as I am aware.  [Not on the Demcoratic Party label, as far as I know.]

Therefore, the Republican primary become tantamount to the entire election.

People who show up for the general election are usually even more Republican oriented than the population of voters who vote in general elections like the one we just had.

When, then, IS the Republican primary for township offices?

You may be surprised to learn that it is in February, 2013.

[Filing for GOP primaries in Algonquin, Dorr, Grafton, McHenry and Nunda Townships is from November 19th through 26th.  Petitions must be filed with the township clerk, along with a statement of candidacy and receipt from the filing of a Statement of Economic Interest with the County Clerk's Office.  These must be stapled together.  Pages must be numbered.]

Very, very, very few people show up for this election, making it easier for townships to overwhelm the vote with their supporters.

Typically the turnouts for the primary are in the single digits percentage wise.

This assumes that there even IS a Republican primary.

There does not necessarily have to be one.

If they want, the precinct committeemen of the township Republican Party can vote at one of their meetings (which the public does not attend) to select all of the township candidates by caucus.

Then there is no primary and the general election is a foregone conclusion.

Oftentimes, various township officials or their spouses are also Republican precinct committeemen .

When do you vote for your Republican Party precinct committeemen?

You do that in the primary election in even numbered years, but only if you vote in the Republican primary.

Only about a third of the registered voters vote in either primary.

The precinct committeeman position is at the very end of the ballot, and is usually uncontested.

Virtually no one knows that this vote can, in effect, determine who the township officials will be the following year.

ARE ARGUMENTS TO ABOLISH TOWNSHIPS PARTISAN?

It has been commented on this blog that it is the Democrats who are interested in abolishing townships because most townships are in Republican areas and this would get rid of some Republican office holders and patronage jobs.

Actually, the movement to abolish townships in Illinois was started by a paralegal named Mike Richardson, who is a Republican and who lives in an area where the Democrats control the townships.

Bob Anderson, who spearheaded the effort in McHenry County, is very much a Republican.

The City of Evanston has placed an advisory referendum on the ballot to abolish Evanston Township, both of those bodies being Democratic.  [It should be noted that Evanston Township has the same bounaries

Final installment: Are Townships Ready for Reform?

The Republican Parties in all of the five largest townships in McHenry County seem to have decided or soon will decide to hold primary elections in February, rather than hold caucuses.

Those five are

• Algonquin
• Dorr
• Grafton
• McHenry
• Nunda

Paperwork apparently has to be filed first with a local township official, who is supposed to forward it to the McHenry County Clerk’s Office.

According to the County Clerk’s Office as of mid-Friday afternoon, none of the five has jumped through all of the loops yet.

Salaries have to be set prior to the election, before November 21st, according to Algonquin Supervisor Dianne Klemm.

The legislative intent for the law was so that those running would know what they would be paid, plus, if someone won a primary that the incumbents didn’t like, they couldn’t cut the salary.

With my learning, albeit a bit belatedly, that the McHenry Township Republican Central Committee will hold a primary election next February to select candidates for

• Supervisor
• Clerk
• Assessor
• Road Commissioner
• Trustees (4)

all the township eligible to hold partisan primaries have signaled they will allow voters to make the choice at the ballot box.

They could have decided to hold a caucus, but decided to go the democratic route.

There is no indication yet that any of the Democratic Central Committees in Algonquin, Dorr, Grafton, McHenry or Nunda Townships will follow suit.

We are now up to three McHenry County townships with more than 10,000 population where the signal has been sent that Republican candidates for next spring’s election will be selected by the voters.

At Wednesday night’s meeting of the Nunda Township Republican Central Committee, which had a quorum this month unlike last [actually, it was June when there was no quorum], the Precinct Committeemen voted to hold a primary election next February.

The winners would contend with Democrats or independents that might pop up to challenge them in April’s election.

Algonquin was the first township central committee to approve a primary in place of a caucus.

It did so at its organization meeting.

Grafton Township GOP Central Committee Chairman Tom Pozsnaski told me at Republican Play Day in July that his intention was to hold a primary.

Monday night Grafton Township Party Central Committee Chairman Tom Poznanski told me that he favored letting the voters decide who the Republican Party candidates for township office would be.

This is the third cycle during which partisan candidates have run for office.

For the first, eleven years ago, the Central Committee held a caucus.

In 2009, the Party decided on a primary election at which Linda Moore beat out the incumbent John Rossi by a couple dozen votes, while re-electing three out of the four incumbent Trustees from the Rossi years.

The fourth Trustee elected was Gerry McMahon. He was supported by those behind Moore, but quickly switched sides and became Moore most vociferous critic.

Moore has been isolated on the Township board which she chairs, having to go to court to keep the Trustees from usurping her executive branch functions.

The Trustees have appealed Judge Michael Caldwell’s decision.

A primary challenge to Moore is a certainty.

It’s that time of year when township officials have to make up their minds whether they are running for re-election.

It’s also time for those thinking about challenging township officials to be making similar calculations.

When I last saw Grafton Township Assessor Bill Ottley if he were running for re-election, I got an affirmative reply.

Assuming Ottley decides to run in the Republican primary election, he (and others) can begin circulating petitions for the February 26th election on August 28th.

Partisan primary election petitions for township office must be filed between November 19th and 26th.

Thanksgiving is November 22nd.

Last time around Algonquin, Dorr, Grafton, McHenry and Nunda Townships held Republican primary elections. The deadline for filing a notice to the County Clerk of such a primary election is November 15th.

No township Democratic Party central committee did so.

Parties in townships of more than 15,000 people may also select their candidates in a party caucus. If a caucus is held, state statute says it must be December 4th.

Since the 1973 fiasco of a caucus conducted by the Algonquin Township Republican Central Committee, McHenry County largest township has allowed voters to decide who GOP candidates for township office shall be.

That was the year that first-term Assessor Forrest Hare was challenged by a young school teacher.

While the caucus looked like a three-precinct primary, after the 3 AM Crystal Lake Community High School Field House results showed the school teacher winning by a handful of votes and even the judges weren’t sure the count was correct, the Central Committee members would not allow a recount.

There was no way to legally force a recount, because the committeemen set the rules.

At that time losers could run as a write-in and Forrest Hare did.

And he won.

The local Republican Party really took a beating as every weekday it was taken to task by Crystal Lake WIVS Radio station owner Mal Ballairs on his morning talk show.

To avoid future similar problems, our State Senator Jack Schaffer and I passed legislation to allow township party organizations to select candidates by citizen votes.

When I brought up the idea at Monday night’s meeting in an Algonquin Township Road Commissioner’s building, only I and Lou Anne Majewski remember the 1973 fiasco.

I was immediately met with the objection of cost.

I couldn’t come up with a figure, but with the low turnout of 19% from both party primaries in March (plus non-partisan only votes on referendums) it’s pretty easy to predict that the turnout will be less when only township officials are on the ballot.

The result will be a high cost per vote, which could be lowered if McHenry County Clerk Kathie Schultz can combine precincts.

The projected expense was really the only argument.

But it was a long discussion.

I pointed out that Democrats could have a field day challenging Republican candidates who had been selected in a secret meeting.

Conversely, Republicans could make hay of any Democratic Party candidates who were not selected at the ballot box, but rather by party bosses.

With township government under attack, I argued, the potential negative publicity would not be helpful.

In the end, all of the Algonquin Township Republican Precinct Committeemen present voted to authorize a primary election next February in which candidates for Township Supervisor, Road Commissioner, Assessor, Clerk and Township Trustees would be selected.