This week, Free and Equal, Inc. has been working overtime in Chicago, defending candidates of all three recognized parties in Illinois from challenges to knock them off the ballot.

Illinois’ challenge process is inherently corrupt. Its only purpose is to rob the voters of their choices on Election Day. Naturally, the process favors the rich and powerful and places citizen candidates, regardless of party, at an undemocratic disadvantage.

Take, for example, the objections by operatives of sitting Governor Pat Quinn to William “Dock” Walls, III — the only African-American attempting to challenge Quinn in the Democratic primary. A press release from Free & Equal this week explains:

“Quinn’s people used a shotgun approach to try to invalidate Walls’ signatures, meaning they tried to invalidate a large number of signatures with no legal justification,” Free & Equal Chief Executive Officer Christina Tobin said. “The man who was supposed to break Illinois’ chain of bad governors and be a reformer has now stooped to wasting taxpayer resources for a strictly political end.”

The petition requirement to run for Governor in Illinois is 5,000 signatures of registered voters. Walls submitted over 9,900 signatures.

Walls said, “It is irresponsible for Pat Quinn to challenge our valid petition signatures and try to deny the people of Illinois a choice on election day. Quinn’s reckless disregard for the established procedures which require due diligence in the challenge process shows he is willing to put winning above the democratic process.”

It wasn’t that long ago that Pat “The Reformer” Quinn was denouncing the challenge process himself, according to this article in the Chicago Tribune.

However, Free and Equal, Inc., has been able to bring some small amount of sanity to the process. One of its clients, David Ratowitz, running for the Republican nomination for U.S. House in Illinois’ 5th District, dropped his own objections against primary opponents Rosanna Pulido and Ashvin Lad. Free and Equal, Inc. also counts Pulido as a client.

Ratowitz took the high road, explaining his unilateral action in his recent press release, “Months of hard work by dedicated Ratowitz for Congress volunteers produced more than double the required signatures for February 2010 Primary ballot access. Confident that those signatures were obtained in a legal and honest manner, we are disheartened by the anonymous challenge to our nominating petitions initiated against our campaign earlier this week.

Unfortunately, in the face of this apparent attempt to limit voter choice, tax our resources and rig the playing field, our campaign has been forced to issue counter objections against both of our opponents.

The spirit of democracy is not fed by these types of baseless technical disputes. I, therefore, propose a withdrawal of objections by all parties in order that we may refocus our energies on the critical issues facing our district and nation. Voters of the 5th District – our fellow citizens – certainly deserve that respect.”

Sadly, this anti-democratic process has been in use so long that most Illinois politicians and their operatives take it for granted, thinking that it is the only way. Naturally, the lawyers who profit from filing and defending the objections have a financial interest in keeping things just the way they are. But finally, there are signs that the media and the voters of Illinois have had enough of being robbed of their choices at the ballot box. Using the challenge against Todd Stroger, who is running for re-election as the Cook County Board President, the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn said in a recent editorial:

“Keeping him off the ballot would be an insult to voters, just as the ultrahigh signature threshold for candidates of non-established parties is an insult to voters. Here’s a better idea: Forget about the petitions and the elaborate rules and the persnickety challenges.”

Noted publisher of Ballot Access News Richard Winger notes, “It is somewhat rare for Illinois newspapers to make such criticisms, so this article is welcome.” Winger also serves on the Board of Directors of The Free and Equal Elections Foundation.

The work of Free and Equal, Inc., will continue for the rest of November in Chicago. They currently count nine candidates from all three qualified parties as their clients. You can read about their ongoing work in more detail on their website, http://www.freeandequalinc.com/.

Once the practical work of defending democracy in the trenches is complete, the job of reforming this inherently corrupt process will fall to The Free and Equal Elections Foundation. We’ll be publishing our Ballot Access Guide in early 2010, suggesting reforms in every state. Eliminating this antidemocratic tradition of keeping legitimate candidates off the ballot in states like Illinois and New York will be a top target of the proposed reforms. These reforms won’t be considered in most states until their next legislative sessions begin in 2011. We’ll use 2010 to educate the public, create coalitions and build momentum in each state towards reform. The educational work of The Free and Equal Elections Foundation will be essential to restoring the basic American principle that every citizen has an equal right and responsibility to run our government.

We need your help to make it happen! If you are interested in enacting true Ballot Access reform in your state, it’s not too early to start. Please contact our Executive Director, Sean Haugh, at sean@freeandequal.org or 919-402-3489 to find out how you can restore democracy to your own ballot.

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