Court Opinion

ID: 9527914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:35:33.741147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:17.612580
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WOODWARD, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. The primary issue before us is whether the Board’s decision was against the manifest weight of the evidence. On administrative review, the findings and decision of the Board will not be overturned unless they are against the manifest weight of the evidence. Huskey v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board (1987), 156 Ill. App. 3d 201. The documentary evidence submitted to the Board was as follows. Plaintiff filed six nominating petitions which contained 75 signatures. Each petition was signed by Geraldine Moscardini as circulator of same. At the hearing before the Board, Ms. Moscardini submitted a sworn affidavit which averred that, because she has a degenerative bone disease which makes stair climbing difficult, she enlisted the help of others to circulate plaintiff’s nominating petition. A number of affidavits confirmed the substance of Ms. Moscardini’s affidavit. Plaintiff also submitted the affidavit of Joyce Krempasky, which stated that she was accompanied by Ms. Moscardini because of Ms. Krempasky’s eye condition (macular degeneration). Due to this condition, she could not see exactly what the signers were writing on the subject petitions. Ms. Krempasky’s affidavit further averred that Ms. Moscardini watched the signers affix their signatures from a distance of 15 to 20 feet. Defense counsel conceded that Ms. Krempasky carried the clipboard on which the subject petitions were signed. She went to the signers’ front doors. Upon the signature being affixed to the petition, she carried the clipboard back to Ms. Moscardini and handed it to her. Defendant’s evidence consisted of six affidavits, several of which were signed by two people who lived at the same address. These affidavits, each of which related to a separate petition sheet, alleged that the affiants had not signed plaintiff’s nominating petition in the presence of Ms. Moscardini. From the evidence in this record, which is admittedly spare, the Board was entitled to find that Ms. Moscardini was not in the presence of the signers at the time their signatures were affixed to the petition; therefore, the petitions signed by her as circulator were not valid. For these reasons, the Board’s decision is not against the manifest weight of the evidence.