“The board needs to let Mary run,” said Free and Equal CEO Christina Tobin. “Thirty-thousand people have signed the petitions to say they want to vote for her.”

Norwood came within 714 votes of getting elected Mayor last fall. Now a difference of four hours could keep her out of the race for Fulton County commission chair.

Illinois requires all candidates running for statewide office to collect signatures to get on the ballot in primary elections; meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of the states require only a filing fee in such instances.

“Replacing signature requirements and the unfair challenge system with uniform filing fees is the only way to institute free and equal elections in Illinois, while saving taxpayers between $5 and $10 million a year,” Christina Tobin said, Free & Equal founder and chief executive. At a time when the state’s budget deficit is hitting record highs, ideas like this should be considered carefully.

The state’s rigged signature-objection procedure makes a mockery of the notion that Illinois holds free and fair elections. It’s also an insensible misuse of millions of taxpayer dollars that go towards legal fees, court costs, employee salaries and more.

Many past and present Illinois politicians, including House Speaker Michael Madigan and minority leader Tom Cross, have used the state’s open signature-challenge procedure and public funds to knock legitimate candidates off the state’s election ballots, thereby limiting the choices for voters. These shameful political tactics were highlighted in a recent investigation by FOX Chicago News, and by Free & Equal Founder Christina Tobin in a recent FOX Chicago Sunday interview.

“This isn’t some repressive, extreme regime; This is the United States,” Tobin said. “The American people expect their country to be the example of freedom and fairness for the rest of the world.”

Visit freeandequal.org to see a list of states that require only a filing fee for primary ballot access in statewide elections.

Chicago, Illinois — Free & Equal, Inc. has successfully helped at least seven candidates overcome Illinois’ senseless ballot-access system to retain their spot on the 2010 primary election ballot.

“While the establishment political machine in Illinois continues to use taxpayer dollars to take election-day choices away from voters, we at Free & Equal will continue trying to protect those choices for the people,” Christina Tobin, Free & Equal founder and chief executive, said.

Free & Equal provided the services of attorney Andrew Spiegel, along with research, inter-candidate dialogue and media outreach in assisting 12 candidates to overcome challenges to their right to be on Illinois’ election ballots. Here are the results of these efforts:

Ballot access in the 2010 primary for Free & Equal-represented candidates:

NO – Deb Leticia Gordils, Republican, State House, District 17

NO – Phil Collins, Republican, State House, District 17

YES – Anita Forte-Scott, Republican, State House, District 56

YES – Rosanna Pulido, Republican, U.S. House, District 5

YES – David Ratowitz, Republican, U.S. House, District 5

WITHDRAWAL/RUNNING AS INDPT. – William “Dock” Walls, III, Democrat, Governor

YES – Dan Kairis, Green, U.S. House, District 14

YES – Bill Scheurer, Green, U.S. House, District 8

NO – Radusa Ostojic, Democrat, Judge in the 11th sub-circuit of Cook County

NO – Ed Scanlan, Democrat, Governor

YES – Kenneth Moy, Republican, 2nd Appellate Court, Callum Vacancy

YES – Bob McQuillan, Republican, State House, District 50

Total: 7 on the ballot, 4 not on the ballot, 1 withdrawal

A challenge to Ratowitz’s petition signatures was dropped at the eleventh hour as Free & Equal prepared to prove the frivolous nature of the objections.

Kairis and Scheurer successfully overcame attempts to knock them off the ballot by Democratic Party functionaries Michael Kreloff and House Speaker Michael Madigan. In Kairis’ case, they went so far as to accuse his family and friends of fraudulent signatures.

Anita Forte-Scott weathered a blatant case of conflict of interest in which former State Board of Elections member John Countryman worked on behalf of House Republican Leader Tom Cross to accuse her of fraud for mistakenly using an outdated form.

Forte-Scott, however, was lucky. She was one of the few that managed to take on opposition from powerful incumbents and win. Collins, Gordils, Scanlan and Walls, meanwhile, were not so lucky.

Collins fell 90 signatures short of the 500 he need to qualify for the ballot, but only after petition-checkers at the direction of Cross cherry-picked signatures that weren’t entirely written in cursive.

Gordils was knocked off the ballot after a hearing for which neither side’s lawyers were notified, and for which exist no official record or minutes, even though her opponent listed his own name in place of hers on his objection forms.

Walls was knocked off the ballot by operatives for Gov. Pat Quinn. “The Reformer,” as Quinn likes to be called, admitted to concerns that Walls – the only African-American running for governor – would siphon away his black voters. But Walls isn’t giving up. He has chosen to run as an Independent, but that means he has to collect 25,000 signatures to be on the ballot.  That’s five times as many signatures as is required of candidates of the Republican and Democratic establishment.

Ostojic lost her hearing after the Cook County Board of Elections gave her objector, Rodney McCulloch, as many chances as he needed to challenge her signatures.  McCulloch received this preferential treatment despite having previously been convicted of charges related to forging signatures on other petitions.  Sadly, Ostojic did not have the money to fight this unjust ruling in court.

The last victory came on Monday, when Bob McQuillan won in his court case brought by objector John Reeves. Apparently the judge disagreed with Reeves’ contention, as quoted in the suburban Chicago Daily Beacon, that, “I have earned the right to choose who will be the candidate in District 50.” At issue again were legitimate signatures made in print rather than cursive writing.

Free & Equal insists it is time to fix the broken process in Illinois for challenging a candidate’s right to be on the ballot. It is time to let the voters decide for themselves who is a worthy of votes.

“Over two-thirds of the states only require a filing fee to run for office, which is a far more sensible and fair method of ballot access,” Tobin said. “It is astonishing to me that my home state of Illinois continues to hold out in minority opposition to such a simple reform.”

Free and Equal, Inc. is a full-service, ballot-access consulting and petitioning firm. Free and Equal, Inc. is a nonpartisan firm that works with candidates from across the political spectrum. Free and Equal, Inc. does not endorse any candidates for office.

With the Illinois primaries now less than 35 days away, some candidates are still fighting to maintain their spot on the February ballot.  Illinois’ arcane and discriminatory ballot access laws are still being used to knock legitimate candidates off the ballot and keep power in the hands of a self-appointed political elite.

Bob McQuillan, a Republican running for State House in District 50, was placed on the ballot despite objections to his petition signatures.  Despite having won this battle, McQuillan now has to go to court to defend his ballot placement.

John Reeves, working on behalf of McQuillan’s primary opponent Keith Wheeler, is pressing the absurd claim that only signatures written in cursive can be counted as legitimate.  At issue are six voters who signed the petition by printing their name.  Whether or not they are real voters who were eligible to sign is not at issue.

Reeves has even been quoted as saying, “I have earned the right to choose who will be the candidate in District 50.”  More details on McQuillan’s struggle to offer himself in public service to the voters of his district can be found in a recent article in the Beacon-News.

This arrogance is typical of the self-styled Illinois power-brokers who believe the voters are a mere inconvenience on the path to solidifying their personal control of Illinois government.

A similar story is unfolding in the race for Judge in the 11th Subcircuit of Cook County.

Radusa Ostojic, a candidate in a crowded Democratic primary, faced two objections to her petitions.  She overcame one attacking the validity of her signatures.  However, her other objector Larry Kelly, working for self-appointed political operative Rodney McCulloch, made over 900 claims of fraud against her 669 total signatures in a scattershot attack which has been upheld by the Cook County Board of Elections.

The Board arbitrary gave Kelly and McCulloch an extension simply because they failed to appear for the review of Ostojic’s signatures by the hearing examiner, which initially found she had enough valid signatures.

Without notice to Ostojic, the Board reopened the signature review, which in this case found her to be 89 signatures short of the 500 required for ballot access.  By the end of the hearing on Christmas Eve, the Board had restored 75 of these signatures, but refused to give her a similar extension to rehabilitate any signatures.

McCulloch received special treatment from the Board of Elections despite having been convicted just last year of perjury and election fraud by falsifying signatures on a candidate’s petition.  According to Ostojic, “Even Chairperson [Daniel] Madden was shaking his head in disbelief that my signatures were objected often stating the signatures on my petition are exactly the same as on the voter registration card.”

Sadly, Ostojic has no money to go to court, and no time left to raise funds to continue the fight.  Ostojic said, “If the point of democracy is to give people the voice to choose a candidate, that opportunity and right has now been taken away.”

Christina Tobin, Founder and CEO of Free and Equal, Inc., which defended Ostojic’s signatures, readily agreed.  “This is just another example of how money rules in politics.  Legitimate candidates outside of the political establishment are forced to spend far too much just to get their names on the ballot.”

Tobin offered a simple alternative to the corrupt objection process.  “Illinois is only one of three states that uses this system,” said Tobin.  “Meanwhile, over two-thirds of the states simply require a filing fee to enter a party primary.”

Tobin concluded, “Requiring filing fees instead would generate extra revenue for the state, save time for elections officials, and most importantly, allow the voters and not the political elites to determine who will serve in public office.”