Supreme Court issues trio of new election law cases

State Rep. Thaddeus Jones (D-29th) picked up another job title recently -- Mayor of Calumet City. The ABC7 story about Jones' swearing-in, posted May 1, is embedded above.

But Jones' mayoral bid was nearly derailed before it started. The Illinois Supreme Court filed an opinion reinstating Jones' candidacy on March 11.

That case, Jones v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board for the City of Calumet City, 2021 IL 126974, is one of three election law cases handed down recently by the Illnois Supreme Court.

The other two cases are Elam v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board for the Village of Riverdale, 2021 IL 127080 (issued April 21), and Corbin v. Schroeder, 2021 IL 127052 (issued April 27).

None of these cases involves judicial elections -- but, given the relatively small number of election law cases, it seems a dead-certain cinch that citations to these cases will find their way into pleadings and decisions when judicial nominating petitions are challenged in the election season now getting underway.

The Jones case arose because, last November, voters in Calumet City approved a referendum holding "that candidates could not seek the office of mayor while simultaneously holding an elected, paid state office." Before the referendum results were certified, Rep. Jones filed mayoral nominating petitions.

The timing was close: Jones filed his petitions on November 16; the referendum results were certified on November 24. The day after the referendum results were certified, on November 25, a challenge was filed to Jones' candidacy.

The argument was that the referendum took effect on November 3, when the final votes were cast in the election. The local electoral board agreed, and ordered Jones off the ballot. The Circuit Court agreed -- but the Appellate Court reversed and ordered Jones reinstated. The Supreme Court's opinion affirms the Appellate Court (2021 IL 126974, ¶14):

“Where the legislature has provided for the method of declaring the results of an election, the election is not complete until that is done.” Palmer v. Illinois Liquor Control Comm’n, 77 Ill.App.3d 725, 730 (1979). The Election Code governs in extensive detail not just the method of declaring the results of an election but the conduct of the election in general. 10 ILCS 5/1-1 et seq. (West 2018). Relevant here, the Election Code requires a canvass of votes take place after voting is complete in order to account for and review the validity of all ballots cast. See id. §§ 22-1 to 22-18. The election authority must then certify and declare the results. See id. §§ 17-1 to 17-100. Here, the results of the referendum were certified on November 24, 2020. That is the legal effective date of the referendum. Holding otherwise would cause instability and confusion, as it would create a period of time where the results of the election are legally effective yet unknown to the public. The legislature provided in the Election Code a prophylactic for this uncertainty: certification and declaration of the results. At that time, the election is decided and legally effective. Consequently, Jones was eligible to run for mayor at the time he filed his nomination papers.

The Elam case is a cautionary tale about petition circulators. Adonis Elam Sr. wanted to run for Riverdale trustee as an independent candidate. The good people of Riverdale elect their officials on a partisan basis but, just as (in theory anyway) with judges, an individual can bypass the primary and file as an independent -- if that person accumulates sufficient petition signatures.

Elam filed 26 pages of signatures on December 21, 2020. But objections were filed, the contention being "that three individuals who circulated Elam’s nomination papers for signatures as an independent candidate in the 2021 consolidated general election violated statutory law by previously circulating nomination papers on behalf of a Democratic candidate in the 2021 consolidated primary election." The case turned on the interpretation of §10-4 of the Election Code, 10 ILCS 5/10-4. (2021 IL 127080, ¶4.)

Specifically, in the Supreme Court's view, the relevant provision of §10-4 was this (2021 IL 127080, ¶12):

“[N]o person shall circulate or certify petitions for candidates of more than one political party, or for an independent candidate or candidates in addition to one political party, to be voted upon at the next primary or general election, or for such candidates and parties with respect to the same political subdivision at the next consolidated election.”

After striking all the signatures collected by the three circulators who had previously passed paper for Democratic candidates (for which candidates, and where, the opinion does not say), Elam was left with a total of nine signatures. The local election board knocked him off the ballot, and the Circuit and Appellate Courts affirmed. The Supreme Court made it unanimous.

The Supreme Court was not piling on. Rather, the court used the Elam case to resolve a conflict between two appellate districts, deciding to overturn Sandefur v. Cunningham Township Officers Electoral Board, 2013 IL App (4th) 130127. (2021 IL 127080, ¶30.)

The Corbin case concerned the propriety of the decision of the Village of Glendale Heights to allow two candidates for village president on the ballot although they had far fewer signatures than were actually required. The candidates, one of whom was the long-time incumbent, relied on the Village Clerk to tell them about the signature requirements -- and the Clerk testified that (2021 IL 127052, ¶12):

[She] misinterpreted what she read in the [ISBE] handbook. That misinterpretation was colored by the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulty of obtaining signatures. In [the Clerk's] mind, the low percentage was “because a lot of people were not answering their doors because of COVID.” [The Clerk] stated, “I honestly thought it was because of COVID and reducing the point of contact. Everything has changed in the past year. Nothing is the same. And it made sense that you would require fewer signatures and have fewer points of contact.” She acknowledged that neither the Governor, the State Board of Elections, the Du Page County Election Commission, nor anyone else ever informed her that the statutorily required number of signatures had been reduced because of the pandemic.

The candidates testified that the Clerk was "phenomenal" and "one of the most stand-up people at the Village." The incumbent Village President was surprised that the signature requirements were so much lower than they had been in her prior election bids but the COVID explanation made sense to her.

And there were court-ordered modifications made to signature requirements for some Illinois candidates in some cases last year -- I wrote about it here -- but there was no general relaxation of signature requirements because of the pandemic.

The local electoral board nevertheless overruled the objections to the candidates' petitions, and the Circuit and Appellate Court's affirmed this determination. The Supreme Court smmarized the Appellate Court's reasoning at 2021 IL 127052, ¶27:

[The Appellate Court agreed] with the Board that “the COVID-19 pandemic is an exceptional circumstance,” as evidenced by the Governor’s executive orders that “affected procedures in virtually all aspects of life.” 2021 IL App (2d) 210085-U, ¶28; 2021 IL App (2d) 210086-U, ¶28. The appellate court conceded that “there was no change” to section 10-3 [of the Election Code, 10 ILCS 5/10-3] and that “[the Clerk] mistakenly consulted the requirements for a different type of candidacy.” 2021 IL App (2d) 210085-U, ¶28; 2021 IL App (2d) 210086-U, ¶28. The critical inquiry was not why [the Clerk] made a mistake but why the candidates relied on it and whether that reliance was, under the extraordinary circumstances, reasonable. 2021 IL App (2d) 210085-U, ¶28; 2021 IL App (2d) 210086-U, ¶28. The court concluded that the Board’s finding that the candidates’ reliance was reasonable was not against manifest weight of the evidence. 2021 IL App (2d) 210085-U, ¶28; 2021 IL App (2d) 210086-U, ¶28.

The Supreme Court reversed, in a 4-2 decision.

The Supreme Court viewed the "issue in this case [as] purely legal---namely, whether the percentages in section 10-3 may be diluted by statements from a municipal election official, so that candidates may obtain ballot access with fewer than the statutorily mandated number of signatures" (2021 IL 127052, ¶33). Framed that way, there could be but one outcome: The Supreme Court refused, it said, to replace the "mandatory, objective direction of the legislature with something more discretionary and subjective" (2021 IL 127052, ¶45).