the cause of the nature of the issues that were raised by the writ of mandamus petition in this case that this particular controversy still requires a directive from this court with respect to the the parties was the last decade when nominating petitions could be final therefore if we read the statute strictly requiring that any withdrawals be filed within five business that the last day was december twenty seventh and that ms rock leo presented her with drawl to the village work after ordinary village hours if it occurred at about eight o'clock that evening but i think it's extremely important your honour's that the facts presented in support of the writ of mandamus be considered and certainly the review process here would require me to establish that the factual evidence and the finding by judge freeze is against the manifest weight and i do believe that i can meet that standard shaper testified to be evidentiary hearing that she did not work at all on december twenty fourth that was a friday that was a recognized holiday by the state of illinois however there was a no other village employee at the village hall on december twenty four she testified that her time records him donovan's time records show that she worked six hours that day that's why and in our assertion it's extremely significant that judge hall on december twenty fourth and clearly there is no evidence that the local election official shaper even worked on december twenty fourth just freeze for around that because they're war two village maintenance workers working inside the village of what how often and in the locations of remote village hall that that meant that there was sufficient conducting a business to equal of business day for purposes of the election and my reading of the statute have the plain language of the statute at at chapter ten of the election code section five one dash three which is the definition section it clearly defines business as a day when you go to local election authority or the county clerk or the state board of elections was open for a minimum of seven hours and certainly this particular statute has been before this court previously in a case where if you i believe it would not have well they have been filed if she laughed at with the administrative assistant your honor but we have no way of knowing whether that individual would have done anything with it and shape burke the acting village work by her own testimony said nobody has any authority to perform my functions it's not a function i tend delegate to someone else she even said the village board did not have the authority to do that and the only evidence that was before judge freeze for consideration was that kim donovan it in ministry defense system was working six hours that day but by her own testimony your honor she doesn't meet the minimum requirement of being open for seven hours and the reason i believe that this particular issue and controversy is significant is because if we take this decision of judge trees to the next step it means that if we have a snow storm on a weekend or a snowstorm on columbus day or friday after thanksgiving and that is not a declared legal day off by these entities and maintenance individuals are called in to plow snow or do anything else then with the interpretation given by judge freeze if any maintenance worker on call work any other person now report to a state office or the state board of election or county officials office then that is going to count as a business day under his interpretation and i would assert that when the legislature created this definition of business day the legislature was very specific in saying a business that is only a day when that office is open for a minimum of seven hours now certainly if shay burke would have been there longer than eight hours no one would be objecting but i do believe that the statute sets a floor and that if the office is not open and conducting business for that seven hour period as members of the public who are required to carry out certain functions in a timely fashion we are not on notice that that office is operating and business and i would assert to your honor's that certainly this is probably you know was not on notice that anyone was working at the village hall on the twenty fourth she did check with the state election officials they indicated that it was a holiday for them and they're for i think it would have been reasonable for her to understand that the local authority also was recognizing that it as a holiday i acknowledge your hono that in the bush case there was that disagreement between ours at the state board and ours at the local and this court determined that the local election of forty six hours control and in this instance if they would have staffed that office with a clerk on the twenty four i probably wouldn't have an argument before this court but here they did not staff that office for seven hours and i also would suggest that  definition of business today the definition of local election authority is extremely specific the stack the legislature took great care in defining what local election authority was they even mentioned the office in particular for the school board and i would suggest that if we give it that definition of local option official it says it means the form or a secretary of a unit of local government and here there was no testimony that an official secretary of the village board or the village clerk was at the home december twenty fourth so i would suggest just by doing a mathematical calculation if we leave off the twenty four then is roughly zero padded till december twenty eighth and clearly the testimony from shape burke the acting village clerk was that she took that withdrawal petition to her office on the morning of twenty eight when she arrived there about eleven am and she filed it on that date now even if there is room to say that december twenty fo at this local municipal government was a visit stay i would assert your honors that the fact that shape burke the village clerk testified that she was not even in the office on december twenty seventh which was a monday for more than three hours she testified she stopped in at eleven fifteen she laughed at two fifteen and then she was called back to town by the mayor do you have to him the withdrawal notice government she may have been able to do that but certainly the statute defining local election officials sets the floor for secretary and so i would assert that if you file that with an administrative assistan lee in light of shape burps testimony that she didn't have the ability to delegate path already so i believe that my client may have been amiss in attempting to do that and then of course there is the factual wrinkle in this case where my client was unilaterally barred from even going into the village hall that she had to get dispensation from some village official before she even entered into a public place and that was a unilateral bar of her being able to enter the village hall judge freeh said that's completely irrelevant somebody else could have conducted this on her behalf but we have to i think honor her  capacity as a member of the general public and as a member of the general public and a candidate seeking office she should have had three opportunity to file her own document she testified  that she attempted to do that at about four forty eight on december twenty seventh but by admission shave work was not there in fact the village clerk was only there for a three hour period the mayor gets on the phone with my withdrawal of candidacy i think even if we for a moment ignore the counting of the business days when the highest alack to official of this local form of government says gives a directive to the clerk to come with him in order to accommodate the request of a candidate seeking office to be able to file a document because this municipal entity doesn't it here to ordinary business hours for their clerk and because this municipal and city unilaterally barred ms parag leo from going into the village hall i think in this and since the village loses their right to argue that it was not timely for mr rugg leo to presenting her withdrawal of her nominating petition to the clerk outside of the business hours i argued to the judge trees that this was similar to the welsh case however i have to concede that actually it's different and judge freeh said in the welsh case they were in the office they had their foot in the door right before five pm and just because the clerk accepted it later than five pm that doesn't give ms four ottley zero a pass to file it at home after that and certainly you know there there was a similar case where i think  candidate tried to file something at their home just shortly before midnight and the clerk accepted it and the court said no you can't do that that was at someone's home in this instance i think that the fact that had no opportunity on a regular basis to file documents with this clerk and the fact that the mayor directed the clerk to do this and had accepted documents in this fashion previously for my client i do believe that the village has wave an argument i believe that ms bradley held timely presented her with her all it was accepted by the clerk on december twenty seventh there was no indication by the clerk at that point in time that it wasn't timely her testified she filed it the morning of the twenty eighth which i would assert under the definition section of the election code she complied with five days from december twentieth because we don't count december twenty fourth and on that basis i believe that she should have been given certification to be on the ballot as an independent candidate for the office she was seeking because at that point she had c any issue with her competing not titian's and she had appropriately filed her withdraw on that basis i would ask that this court reverse the findings of judge freeze find that we were entitle to relief on our well this is a court case there is no reasoning there's no argument there are no citation for you to that regard and then when we raise it in response in our apple lease brief then they come out swinging in their reply brief trying to show that it really is a matter of importance and therefore we think it is way better if it wasn't may we have no other option opportunity to respond to it then this oral argument at the same time there were a number of statements made during her argument such as the fact that the only person that could receive this  was the acting village choir and that there was nobody else that had been down there that could take it and if you look at the transcript i think it's volume two of the record on appeal and pages fifty to fifty two far somebody from the village hall that's another issue which i am not fully aware of i know that she was allowed to me and then we trawl to file her candidacy papers and i think if she did come to the village hall  nearly premier that when she if anyone came to escort her out and we don't know that anyone would have thought she could have said i'm here for the same election type purpose that i was admitted before and she would have been admitted i think the idea  doesn't matter because i think it was this court's decision the bush case i believe basically says that it is the office that other people can do it it doesn't have to be physically or personally so  this put it this way everyone is presume to know the law and it doesn't excuse her from not getting out of her car or crossing from the post office remember one point she was across the street at the post office and it does her that she was not to be in the village hall and merely circumstances unless there was a public meeting and she did attend that but that see her own conduct contradicts that because she went  is the state election board our young lection a thirty one of the local election official so you're talking about the principal office of the local official and she didn't go to the office by quotes that i read to you from the factory it was made this case now having at least raised questions about the factual accuracy of what you've been told but i would like to do is that's that's takes care of it right if if it's in the village office i mean things so i mean i don't know how big probably is in the city of chicago you can say well it has to be a particular staff in a particular office if you've got a really small village and everyone pretty much wears all the hats and so if they're him an official place where they can fill the legal requirement which is it's there for public access and for public record and if they're at their chicago or not even for the city of springfield but for places like eliopoulos ashland virginia and i will tell you this that if somebody tried to file something in the village of ashland and the only person there was fleabite who were in the store pile and cut grass during the summer time nobody would ever consider fleabite to be an official capable this is not the case to take that back question i mean there's probably you know either that this is litigating that issue but you know that i'm looking at it from the standpoint of the prospective  disagree i think if she called the mayor and said hey i've tried to fire the staff nobody's there i know out of those what are you going to do about it the mayors hopefully had a little bit of it including that maybe better a citizen of the community from the village was not the best idea in the world i'm going to try to go and try to take care of this problem so we don't get into a big problem and soon all right let me turn this around your questions and say that what you've been asking about is so special to walk out and so unique circumstance i would agree with that but it does not qualify for the public interest exception to  authorized he didn't talk about anyone else so they covered six hours in their day who need to say that there was another person there who was there but there wasn't they didn't follow that bird it wasn't there for the aisle or hour to mak a seven hour day well it over and they decided well we can prove that the sleep was only there for six hours let's be sorry about that last hour but the burden of proof is on them to prove their case that there wasn't someone there the there for six hours and a presumption that someone was there without her proof otherwise that because it's her burden of proof that there was no one there for them from the seventh hour and therefore she has no real case on that basis and she's not some of these briefly your honour's with regard to the facts that counsel mentioned about sharon williams being available as a trustee that was contradictory testimony when mr justice called che birth to the stand went to her when he i think he did recall her when she testified in my case in chief she said she didn't have the ability to delegate that authority and with regard to sharon williams i defer that she wasn't there because kim donovan's tykerb indicated she was the only employee administrative person who works that day and i believe your honour's understand the position that ms rockley said that she contacted outlook or the people that she had previously utilized to get permission to file a nominee paper and also also feel to point out that she did in fact she was allowed entry into the village hall to file her nominated papers but that wasn't the testimony that was because the village was manning the village hall for posted hours and she said the mayor told her that she could enter into the village hall during that period of time and then of course on the twenty fourth  assertion is it wasn't a business day it doesn't amount to a business day and that i carried initially my burden of proof to show that they were not there the court was apparent all and so that if i had to read the statute disallowin no he disagreed with me on that your honor he said that december twenty fourth was a business day and that's why i believe that the absence that was presented on that establishes clearly that the have a dense was no  village workers working outside of the village hall you know taking care of things at the park that that was kin to having the village facilities staffed and i have  the village hall many times and what paula and downs and hayworth in these small communities between warmington and springfield and if i as a member of the public have to go in and find that that's an issue that would create an issue for me and then having to determine who is behind that ask most of the time these little village halls are only open for specific periods and i would never see the maintenance worker there and that was one of the reasons that we do believe that it is an issue of public concern because these small villages operate where they have minimal staff during the week and they have to make sense for first person now that are outside in the village limits doing all kinds of things on weekends on holidays on snow days and so i think judge freezes decision taken to the next level could lead communities to believe that it is a business day for purposes of calculating time if anybody reports for work that day and i think that that's a significant issue i do believe that we met our burden on the writ of mandamus i do believe that we were true to our complaint in seeking that relief to have m broccoli certified as a candidate because as a member of the public a candidate for office she acted reasonably given her particular facts and while there may not be other communities that bar people from their offices