Thursday, December 15, 2011

Lottery results in crowded subcircuit races

If the top ballot position translates to votes in judicial races (and experience teaches this is so), I would assume that the effect is magnified in more crowded races, particularly in subcircuit races, the races furthest down the ballot. (If my assumption is incorrect, I know I can count on experts like Albert J. Klumpp, PhD, to correct my misunderstanding.)

The focus of this post, therefore, is on lottery results in subcircuit races with three or more candidates. There are a lot of crowded races in the subcircuits -- but not all of them were concerned with the lottery drawing yesterday. In the 3rd Subcircuit (McSweeney Moore vacancy), for example, although there are presently five candidadtes, Judge Thomas J. Carroll was assured the top ballot position because he was the only candidate for that race when the doors at the Illinois State Board of Elections opened on the first day of candidate filing. So the list of multi-candidate races that follows is not exhaustive; it only addresses instances where the lottery drawing concerned two or more of the contenders.

(Links are to campaign websites, where known.)

2nd Subcircuit -- Stuttley vacancy
  • Carl B. Boyd (Objection Pending)
  • Toya T. Harvey (Objection Pending)
  • Arthur Wesley "Wes" Willis (Objection Pending)
  • Alma Learetta Tyson (Objection Pending)
  • Chester Slaughter (Objection Pending)
  • Paul O. Otubusin (Objection Pending)
Note: In this race, only Boyd and Harvey were in the lottery drawing.

4th Subcircuit -- Riley vacancy
  • Daniel Lawrence Peters
  • William "Gomo" Gomolinski
  • Michael J. "Mike" Dickman
  • Terry Gallagher (Objection Pending)
  • Joanne Marie Rogers
In this race, all of the Democratic primary candidates were in the lottery.

4th Subcircuit -- "A" vacancy
  • Julie Line Bailey
  • Karin Elizabeth Swanson
  • Linda A. Walls
  • James J. Ryan (Objection Pending)
  • Martin D. Reggi
  • Edward M. Maloney
In this race only Bailey and Swanson were in the lottery.

6th Subcircuit -- Delgado vacancy
Santiago, Ferrante, Ahern and Claudio were all in the ballot lottery in this race.

8th Subcircuit -- Chiola vacancy
Stewart, Gamrath and Shapiro were each in the lottery for the top spot in this race.

8th Subcircuit -- Cole vacancy
In this race, all of the candidates except Levin were entered in the ballot lottery.

8th Subcircuit -- Durkin Roy vacancy
In this race, the battle for the top position was between Gubin and Patterson.

9th Subcircuit -- Epstein vacancy
All of the candidates in this race were entered in the ballot lottery.

11th Subcircuit -- O'Brien vacancy
Murphy, Clancy and Martinez were in the lottery in this race.

11th Subcircuit -- Urso vacancy
Only Marino and Meyerson were in the lottery in this race.

12th Subcircuit -- Rochford vacancy
  • Daniel P. Scott
  • Andrea M. Schleifer (Objection Pending)
  • Robert P. Babbitt
  • Jennifer Bae (Objection Pending)
  • Michael John Halloran
  • James C. Murray
All the candidates in the Democratic Primary in this race (that is, all listed above) were in the lottery except for Murray.

13th Subcircuit -- Pietrucha vacancy
Each of the candidates in this race was involved in the lottery. This race is noteworthy also because it is the only Republican primary contest listed here. In most Cook County judicial races, no Republicans filed. In the 13th Subcircuit, no Democrats filed.

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Related: Lottery results in the Supreme Court race, contested Appellate Court vacancies;
Lottery results in contested countywide Circuit Court races

2 comments:

Albert said...

The first position seems to be worth the same number of votes regardless of contest size. But the bigger the contest and the more fragmented the electorate, any advantage that one candidate can monopolize becomes more important. If you can win a contest with 25 percent of the votes, any guaranteed advantage becomes huge. So yes, it does play a bigger role in determining the winner in larger contests.

It doesn’t look like subcircuit vs. countywide is significantly different; they’re similar enough to voters and far enough down on the ballot that there wouldn’t be any real difference. But from one subcircuit to another the value of the first position does vary.

Albert said...

The first position seems to be worth the same number of votes regardless of contest size. But the bigger the contest and the more fragmented the electorate, any advantage that one candidate can monopolize becomes more important. If you can win a contest with 25 percent of the votes, any guaranteed advantage becomes huge. So yes, it does play a bigger role in determining the winner in larger contests.

It doesn’t look like subcircuit vs. countywide is significantly different; they’re similar enough to voters and far enough down on the ballot that there wouldn’t be any real difference. But from one subcircuit to another the value of the first position does vary.