Court Opinion

ID: 9726630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:00:59.139799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:29.299171
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE O’MALLEY, specially concurring: Although I agree with the result the majority reaches in this case, I disagree with its analysis. As the majority notes, section 7 — 61 of the Election Code provides that a “resolution to fill a vacancy in nomination *** shall include, upon its face, *** the date of selection.” 10 ILCS 5/7 — 61 (West 2006). The purpose of this requirement is to allow the certifying authority to determine if the resolution was sent within three days of the selection, as is required under the Election Code. See 10 ILCS 5/7 — 61 (West 2006) (the resolution “shall be sent *** to the certifying officer or board within 3 days of the action by which the vacancy was filled”); Zerante, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 980. Thus, for the purposes of this case, section 7 — 61 has two relevant requirements. First, it requires that a nominating resolution be filed with the proper certifying authority within three days of a candidate’s selection. Second, in order to allow the certifying authority to evaluate compliance with the first requirement, section 7 — 61 requires that any nominating resolution state on its face the date of the candidate’s selection. There are two published decisions addressing resolutions that did not meet the second requirement — the date requirement — of section 7 — 61. In the first case, Zerante, the resolutions at issue indicated the date on which they were signed, but they gave no indication of the date on which the candidate had been selected for nomination. Zerante, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 979. Though the court was able to deduce from the record that the selection must have taken place within a seven-day period, it could reach no conclusion as to whether the selection took place within three days of the filing of the resolutions. Zerante, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 979. Thus, the resolutions’ failure “to specify the date upon which the petitioner was selected *** prevent[ed] a determination as to whether the resolutions were transmitted to the certifying authority in a timely fashion.” Zerante, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 979. The court in Zerante further held that the date requirement of section 7 — 61 must be considered mandatory under the circumstances presented there: “It is this inability of the certifying authority to determine [whether the resolution was timely filed] *** that leads us to conclude that the provision of section 7 — 61 that states that a resolution shall contain the date of selection is mandatory.” Zerante, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 980. Likewise, in the second case, McSparin, the resolution “did not contain the date upon which [the candidate] was selected” (McSparin, 352 Ill. App. 3d at 356) and was therefore insufficient. The decision in McSparin contains no indication as to whether there was any dispute that the candidate met the three-day filing requirement of section 7 — 61, but McSparin relied on the holding from Zerante that a resolution must be deemed insufficient where it “ ‘prevents] a determination of whether the [resolution was] transmitted to the certifying authority in a timely fashion.’ ” McSparin, 352 Ill. App. 3d at 357, quoting Forcade-Osborn v. Madison County Electoral Board, 334 Ill. App. 3d 756, 760 (2002), citing Zerante, 287 Ill. App. 3d at 980. Although Zerante and McSparin discuss whether the date requirement of section 7 — 61 is mandatory, their holdings cannot be applied directly here, for two reasons. First, even though Zerante held the date requirement of section 7 — 61 to be mandatory, it did so expressly based on the idea that it was impossible to determine if the resolutions had been filed within three days of the candidate’s selection. Thus, in Zerante, the resolutions failed the second requirement of section 7 — 61 (that it list the date of the candidate’s selection), and, as a result, the court could not determine if the resolutions met the first requirement (that it be filed within three days of the candidate’s selection). Here, even though the resolution failed the second requirement — it did not list the correct date of petitioner’s selection — evidence affirmatively established that the resolution met the first requirement — petitioner was selected within three days of the date the resolution was filed. The second reason the holdings in Zerante and McSparin do not apply directly to this case is that neither case discusses the effect of conclusive evidence of the real date of the candidate’s selection and the timely filing of the resolution. The question presented here, and not presented in Zerante and McSparin, is whether the date requirement of section 7 — 61 requires strict compliance when it can be determined conclusively that the resolution was timely filed. In other words, if a candidate unquestionably passes the first requirement of section 7 — 61 (that the resolution be timely filed), does the second requirement (the date requirement), which is meant to ensure conformity with the first requirement, still require strict compliance? The view that the date requirement of section 7 — 61 must be enforced strictly, even if it can be otherwise determined that the resolution was timely filed, finds support in our case law. In Powell v. East St. Louis Electoral Board, 337 Ill. App. 3d 334 (2003), the petitioner “timely filed *** her nominating papers and a receipt evidencing the filing of a statement of economic interests.” Powell, 337 Ill. App. 3d at 338. However, the receipt was not file-stamped by the county clerk, as was required under section 10 — 5 of the Election Code. See 10 ILCS 5/10 — 5 (West 2000) (candidate whose statement of economic interests is not on file with the officer with whom the nomination papers are filed must “file with the officer with whom the nomination papers are filed a receipt from the officer with whom the statement of economic interests is filed showing the date on which such statement was filed”). The petitioner argued that she “ ‘substantially and in good faith’ ” complied with the Election Code and that she should not be removed from the ballot “ ‘for merely technical violations.’ ” Powell, 337 Ill. App. 3d at 338. Based on its reading of our supreme court’s decision in DeFabio v. Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d 63 (2000), the court rejected this argument: “Gummersheimer held that a mandatory provision of the Election Code must be enforced even where parties agree there is no knowledge or evidence of fraud or corruption.” Powell, 337 Ill. App. 3d at 338. The holding in Powell would seem to indicate that in all instances candidates must be removed from ballots for failure to comply fully with the Election Code. See McSparin, 352 Ill. App. 3d at 358-61 (Kuehn, J., specially concurring) (applying Powell’s strict compliance rule). However, Powell is not beyond reproach. As noted, it based its holding on our supreme court’s decision in Gummersheimer. A closer reading of Gummersheimer reveals that it does not warrant the reading Powell gave it. In Gummersheimer, all of the ballots cast in a particular precinct were invalidated because the election judges in that precinct did not initial the ballots, as was required under the Election Code. Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d 63; see 10 ILCS 5/24A — 10.1 (West 1998). The candidate who lost in the resulting ballot recount produced affidavits from the election judges, who attested that the absence of initials on the ballots was “due to mistake rather than to fraud or corruption,” and on that basis the candidate argued that the initialing requirement of the Election Code should be relaxed and the uninitialed ballots counted. Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d at 64-65. The supreme court rejected this argument and instead strictly enforced the relevant provision of the Election Code and ruled the uninitialed ballots invalid. Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d at 65-69. However, the supreme court did not, as Powell argued, state a broad rule requiring strict enforcement of all provisions of the Election Code regardless of the practical utility of doing so. In fact, quite the opposite. In holding the uninitialed ballots to be invalid, the supreme court stressed the idea that the initialing requirement should be enforced because it served an important purpose under the Election Code: it helped prevent fraud in the form of surreptitiously cast illegal ballots not approved by the election judges. Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d at 66-69. The supreme court also contrasted the case before it with two of its previous cases, Pullen v. Mulligan, 138 Ill. 2d 21 (1990), and Craig v. Peterson, 39 Ill. 2d 191 (1968), in which the court relaxed the requirements of the Election Code to “permití ] the counting of *** uninitialed absentee ballots that are easily distinguished from in-precinct ballots.” Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d at 66. Thus, Powell misread Gummersheimer when it cited it for the proposition that courts must strictly enforce all provisions of the Election Code in all instances. The exception referenced in Gummersheimer was based on the rule that a statute disenfranchising voters will be declared unconstitutional and not enforced in cases where its application would be arbitrary or unreasonable or would not make a substantial contribution toward insuring the honesty and secrecy of the election. See Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d at 66, citing Craig, 39 Ill. 2d at 194-97, and Pullen, 138 Ill. 2d at 49-54 (summarizing and relying on the holding in Craig). In Craig, the supreme court applied this rule to conclude that strict enforcement of the Election Code under the circumstances at issue would render an unconstitutional result. See Craig, 39 Ill. 2d at 197. The supreme court therefore applied the interpretive maxim that a court should “so interpret a statute as to promote its essential purposes and to avoid, if possible, a construction that would raise doubts as to its validity” and held that the relevant portion of the Election Code be considered directory, rather than mandatory, under the facts of that case. Craig, 39 Ill. 2d at 201. Of course, the issue here is not the rights of voters but, rather, the rights of a candidate. However, restrictions on a candidate’s access to a place on the ballot receive scrutiny similar to that imposed on statutes that tend to disenfranchise voters: “access to a place on the ballot is a substantial right not lightly to be denied,” and it “should not be impeded by unreasonable, frivolous, or unnecessarily limiting requirements.” Williams v. Butler, 35 Ill. App. 3d 532, 536 (1976), citing Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 29 L. Ed. 2d 554, 91 S. Ct. 1970 (1971), and Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 39 L. Ed. 2d 702, 94 S. Ct. 1315 (1974); see also Welch v. Johnson, 147 Ill. 2d 40, 56 (1992) (adopting a portion of the above statement from Williams). Based on this language from Williams, I would extend the rationale from Craig and hold that a court may strictly enforce the Election Code’s restrictions on candidacy to deny a candidate ballot access only where doing so is reasonable and necessary for the purposes of the Election Code. Where such a result would not be reasonable and necessary and thus would not be constitutional, a court must interpret the Election Code in a way that avoids the constitutional infirmity associated with unnecessarily removing a candidate from a ballot. As noted, the purpose of the date requirement in this case is to ensure compliance with another portion of section 7 — 61, which requires that nominating resolutions be filed within three days of a candidate’s selection. Because petitioner here established that her nominating resolution was timely filed, strict enforcement of the date requirement under section 7 — 61 would serve no purpose recognized by the Election Code. Accordingly, I would hold that we must interpret the date requirement as being directory, and not mandatory, under the facts of this case. For that reason, I agree with the majority that petitioner should not be excluded from the ballot due to her failure to comply with the date requirement of section 7 — 61. The majority misrepresents my position when it states that I propose to “reclassify the date requirement of section 7 — 61 from mandatory to directory.” 385 Ill. App. 3d at 459.1 do not propose such a broad holding. I propose that, under the facts of this case, we must interpret the date requirement as directory instead of mandatory, even if we must in most other cases interpret the date requirement as mandatory. This is precisely the approach the supreme court followed in Gummersheimer, when it, as the majority states, “reaffirmed the mandatory nature” of a portion of the Election Code (385 Ill. App. 3d at 459) but also reaffirmed its holding from Craig that otherwise-mandatory requirements may be relaxed “under very limited circumstances” (Gummersheimer, 192 Ill. 2d at 66). I believe the particular facts of this case present the type of “limited circumstances” that justified the holding in Craig. The majority prefers not to expand “the limited application of Craig” because it was decided under “very limited factual circumstances not present here.” 385 Ill. App. 3d at 459. I cannot disagree that the facts here are different — this is not a case of an election judge failing to initial ballots. My position is that we should extend the holding of Craig to these facts. Beyond noting a factual difference between this case and Craig, the majority offers no explanation as to why the supreme court’s reasoning in Craig should not apply to the facts of this case. Instead, the majority abruptly changes subject to note that, even if the provision is mandatory in this case, it does not require strict compliance. 385 Ill. App. 3d at 460. (The majority does not explain the rationale behind this counterintuitive rule that mandatory provisions do not require strict compliance.) The majority then classifies the incorrect date as “[a] minor error” (385 Ill. App. 3d at 461). In Craig, upon which I rely, the supreme court could very well have declared the failure to initial the ballots “minor” and on that basis allowed the ballots to be counted. It did not. Instead, it ruled that the relevant portions of the Election Code should be interpreted as directory under the facts presented. The majority follows a different approach. I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the error here is “minor.” Section 7 — 61 requires that the date appear on the face of the nominating resolution so that it can be checked for compliance with the time line contained in the same section. This appears to me to comprise a major, indeed perhaps the most substantive, portion of the section 7 — 61 requirements for a nominating resolution. I do not agree that the noncompliance with that requirement here was only minor. Nor do I share the majority’s view that including an incorrect date somehow constitutes more substantial compliance than including no date at all. See 385 Ill. App. 3d at 461. In either case, the candidate will have failed to include the date of selection. The only real difference is that, in the case of an incorrect date, the noncompliance will be more difficult to uncover. Because I would hold that, under the facts of this case, the date requirement of section 7 — 61 is directory rather than mandatory, the nature (minor versus substantial) of the error does not affect my view of this case. The majority’s reasoning is weakened further by its treatment of MeSparin and Zerante. As noted, the majority’s analysis hinges on its erroneous conception that the date error was minor. However, when it distinguishes MeSparin and Zerante, the majority relies on the idea that the resolutions in those cases were “facially invalid,” unlike this case, where “petitioner’s resolution was facially valid, and both the true date of selection and the incorrect date fell within all statutory time constraints.” 385 Ill. App. 3d at 460. The majority offers no explanation as to why the “facial validity” of the resolutions should be considered significant; in fact, it does not even explain where it finds authority containing any requirement, or even any reference, to the notion of “facial validity.” If facial validity is irrelevant to this case (as it must be, since the majority makes no reference to that idea anywhere in its analysis of this case), I do not understand why it should serve as a relevant basis to distinguish MeSparin and Zerante. The closest the majority comes to an explanation of this concept of “facial validity” is its statement that the resolution here was facially valid because “both the true date of selection and the incorrect date fell within all statutory time constraints.” 385 Ill. App. 3d at 460. If the majority intends to say that such facial validity is required, the majority is at odds with itself. The crux of its analysis is that a date error is a “minor error” that can be forgiven when the candidate actually complies with the statutory time constraints. This reasoning would apply equally regardless of whether the erroneous date on the resolution fell within the statutory time line (i.e., regardless of whether the erroneous date rendered the resolution facially invalid). After all, a scrivener could just as easily — probably even more easily — make an error that would render the resolution facially invalid as a scrivener could make an error that would render the resolution facially valid. If facial validity is significant to the majority’s analysis, it becomes vital that a scrivener’s error fall within the three-day statutory window. Any scrivener’s error that does not would metamorphose into a monumental flaw, preventing the candidate from demonstrating that he or she actually complied with the statutory time line. This is quite a consequence, given that whether the scrivener’s error renders a resolution facially valid or invalid is controlled solely by happenstance. Thus, at best, the majority’s reference to “facial validity” adds nothing, and, at worst, it undercuts the whole of the majority’s analysis. As a final note, the majority appears to criticize my quotation of Williams above on the basis that Williams was abrogated by the supreme court’s decision in Bowe. (Bowe actually explicitly endorses at least part of the holding in Williams (Bowe, 79 Ill. 2d at 470), and any purported abrogation of course has no impact on the validity of the language I quote.) Interestingly, not two full pages after this criticism, the majority relies on the exact same language. See 385 Ill. App. 3d at 460 (“access to a place on the ballot is a substantial right and not to be lightly denied”). The majority attributes this language to Nader, 354 Ill. App. 3d at 345, which cited Welch, 147 Ill. 2d at 56. A quick look at Welch reveals the original source of the language: Welch cites the same portion of Williams I quote above. Thus, it appears that the majority has accomplished the rare feat of declaring the basis of its own holding abrogated.