On Tuesday November 2, 2010 Illinois voters will elect two US Senators. One election will be for a full 6 year term beginning in January 2011. The second election will be for a temporary term for the two months until January 2011.

In the US District Court of Northern Illinois on August 2, Judge John Grady issued a decision outlining the procedures that Illinois should use for the second election of the temporary US Senator. Judge Grady ordered that the same candidates will be on the ballot for both elections. Senator Roland Burris appealed that decision.

“Sen. Burris has a case,” said Christina Tobin, CEO and Founder of Free and Equal Elections Foundation. “These are two separate elections and they should be treated as such. Everybody in Illinois should be given an equal opportunity to run for that temporary US Senate seat, including Sen. Burris. Free and Equal will have a debate for the 6 year US Senate term next week, and we’ll have one for the 2 month term too. But first, Governor Pat Quinn needs to be a leader and immediately call a special session and fix this mess.”

“Speaker Michael Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross have both demonstrated they can put together massive teams of petition checkers and lawyers to literally go through over a hundred thousand signatures in one week in an effort to kick competition off the ballots,” said Tobin. “If they can do that, surely they can spare a couple days right now to do actual public service work by fixing Illinois election laws that are among the worst in the US.”

Dane Placko had an excellent article on Fox News titled “‘Madigoons’ Investigated: Where Does State Work End, Politics Begin?” that every voter in Illinois should read.

FOX Chicago News examined three years of legislative payroll records, and then compared them with political campaign expenditures. We found 34 Democratic House employees under the control of Speaker Madigan taking off from their jobs for weeks, sometimes months at a time.

“Where are Madigan’s minions right now?” said Tobin. “Madigan refused the public outcry for a special election in early 2009 because Madigan was playing politics trying to keep a US Senate seat in Democratic hands. Madigan obviously put his political party ahead of the voters of Illinois and that is what created this mess. He needs to go to Springfield tomorrow and do his job.”

Media coverage of Illinois’ backwards ballot access system from Charles Thomas at ABC 7 in Chicago, News Director Jim Anderson’s “Eye of Illinois” from the Illinois Radio Network, Doug Ibendahl at Republican News Watch, and Fox Chicago Sunday is helping to educate every Illinois voter about the flawed system they have.

Illinois Republican staffers have a history of using the same tactics. The chief of staff to Republican leader Lee Daniels, Michael Tristano, went to jail for having state employees do political work on the state clock. There was also George Ryan’s political operation in 1998 being run out of his Secretary of State office. In 2002, most of Judy Baar Topinka’s staff from her Treasurer’s office in Chicago all took the same day off to work on Jim Ryan’s failed challenge against Cal Skinner, the Libertarian candidate for Governor.

“Tom Cross could probably call some of his staffers back from the challenges to the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates going on right now and help solve some of the problems he is perpetuating in Illinois,” said Tobin. “Tom Cross and John Fogarty know each other well. Fogarty is playing games along with Bill Brady, Bill Brady’s niece Brittany, and Andrew Heffernan trying to kick the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party candidates off the ballot. How about putting those lawyers and policy analysts to proper use fixing bad election instead of trying to fix elections by abusing those bad laws?”

Illinois election laws are constantly being taken to court, as is the case with this special election for US Senate and Sen. Burris’ appeal. In 2006 the case Lee v. Keith in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ballot access requirements for independent candidates were in violation of the US Constitution. Lisa Madigan’s Attorney’s General office was on the losing side of that lawsuit, just like she was wrong about this special election. Republican Cedra Crenshaw was just put on the ballot in the 43rd State Senate district because a law passed last year by the General Assembly was sloppy and created conflicting statutes.

“The conflicting legislation they passed last year to create the Cedra Crenshaw situation shows Madigan and Cross are still incompetent when it comes to election laws,” said Tobin. “Illinois voters can not trust Madigan or Cross to come up with a fair plan to hold a free and equal special election for the temporary US Senate seat, so we have a plan for them. Madigan and Cross need to listen to this plan, have their Legislative Reference Bureau write it up, and then go implement it tomorrow for this special election instead of letting a judge decide which candidates are on the ballot. Burris might win his lawsuit and they need to be ready to act.”

Institute a filing fee of $500 in lieu of 500 petition signatures due on or before August 30, 2010. The same requirement for everyone. There will be no private petition challenge process by having the state board of elections automatically check the signatures. Since it is too late to hold a partisan primary, the election will have to be a winner take all free for all. That is the only realistic choice left that will give everyone in Illinois an equal opportunity to run for the temporary US Senate seat and that protects voter choice.

The three established parties, Democratic, Green, and Republican can have their central committees select their party’s official candidate for the special election. Those three candidates must pay the $500 filing fee or submit 500 petition signatures and they will be identified on the ballot as Democratic Party, Green Party, and Republican Party. Any other candidates from those three parties may file and run with the ballot labels Prefers Democratic Party, Prefers Green Party, or Prefers Republican Party.

For example, if the Democratic Party state central committee chooses Alexi Giannoulias as their nominee and he properly files, his name would appear on the ballot as Alexi Giannoulias, Democratic Party. If Sen. Roland Burris does not receive the state central committee endorsement but still wants to run and properly files, his name would appear on the ballot as Roland Burris, Prefers Democratic Party.

If Illinois voting machines could handle instant run-off, or ranked choice voting we would recommend those choices be considered but that is not possible for this election. Another realistic option would be to hold the special election similar to method California used in November 1946 to elect a US Senator to a special term. In that case, they used a write-in election and no names were printed on the ballot.

“Illinois can do better than a write-in election but only if they act now to implement our filing fee winner take all election,” said Tobin. “A court may stick us with a write-in election if Burris’ lawsuit is successful. Quinn needs to respect the voters of Illinois and call a special session to provide them a free and equal election with our filing fee plan.”