Ogle County Clerk and Recorder Rebecca Duke is reprinting 21,000 ballots and reprogramming early voting machines after a late state ruling removed Republican gubernatorial candidate Joseph Severino from the March 17 primary ballot, forcing changes after early voting was already underway.
Duke said the state’s final decision on Severino’s appeal came Feb. 6, a day after ballots had to be prepared for early voting.
“We are changing it, but we have left him up until now,” Duke told NW Illinois News. “We had to send out all military and overseas ballots by January 30th. So there was still an issue with Severino on whether he was going to be on the ballot or not on the ballot.”
Duke said her office is now focusing on logistical hurdles.
“We have to have machines programmed, ballots ready,” she said. “We had to, at some point, we just had to pull the trigger and just move forward.”
She added that coordination with the state’s attorney allowed the county to move forward with corrections.
“I have talked to the state’s attorney and we are going to reprint all the election day ballots, all the Republican ones, and we’re going to reprogram the early voting machines and Severino will be taken off,” Duke said. “And it should start tomorrow. They are in the process of redoing our ballots as we speak.”
According to Duke, 41 voters have already cast early ballots for Severino that cannot be changed and will count as under votes.
In early January, the Illinois State Board of Elections removed gubernatorial candidate Severino and his running mate Rantch Isquith from the March 17 primary ballot after election officials determined the campaign did not have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Reviewers of more than 6,300 signatures cited problems, including fictitious names like “Homer Simpson,” invalid or non-residential addresses, mismatched voter information and repetitive handwriting patterns, and the campaign’s attempts to reinstate signatures were denied for missing affidavits or certified documentation.
Severino has said he plans to sue the board and continue appealing the decision, with an appellate court hearing pending and a likely request for the Illinois Supreme Court to review the case.
With Ogle County removing Severino from its ballot, he will only remain on ballots in only four counties – Kane, McHenry, Lake and Boone counties – of the 102 counties statewide.
The certified candidates appearing on the ballot in the other 98 counties are Ted Dabrowski and Carrie Mendoza, James Mendrick and Robert Renteria, Darren Bailey and Aaron B. Del Mar and Rick Heidner and Christina Neitzke-Troike.
Duke said she empathizes with other clerks noting the difficulty of managing ballots amid court challenges and late candidate removals.
“I truly think that all the county clerks are doing the best that they can,” she said. “It makes it really hard when things like this are objected to and then they go to court and that is drawn out because we have deadlines we have to meet. Mailing out overseas ballots and early voting starting, if you delay early voting, you don’t want to disenfranchise other voters that could only come during that time.”
Duke explained that the timing of candidate certifications and last-minute removals adds significant pressure on county clerks.
She noted that these issues are not unique to Ogle County, but affect clerks across Illinois.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski said Severino’s case is an example of systemic “chaos” in Illinois elections, citing extended early voting, expanded vote-by-mail windows and inconsistent ballot management as threats to election integrity.
“It’s not as simple as one error,” Dabrowski told Prairie State Wire. “We’ve got multiple ballots, three different ballots running around in Illinois, and that breaks all the requirements by the Constitution of uniformity of ballots. So you can imagine that there will be voters who will be disenfranchised and candidates who were disenfranchised, and that’s a big problem given the election integrity problems we have, not just nationwide but in Illinois in particular, and of course the level of corruption we have here in Illinois.”
Dabrowski’s comments come on the heels of a lawsuit he filed against Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons following the misspelling of Dabrowski’s first name as “Tad” instead of “Ted” on the ballot. The lawsuit seeks to halt further distribution of the ballots, require reprinting, and count all early votes for “Tad” in Dabrowski’s favor.
Aaron Ammons, a Democrat and convicted felon, was pardoned by former Gov. Pat Quinn. His wife, state Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana), has been credited with helping secure the pardon, which allowed him to run for Champaign County clerk.
“Errors, confusion and abuse are the predictable consequences of expanding early voting to six weeks prior to elections and linking vote-by-mail ballot mailings to the date of early voting, which were championed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and ruling Democrats,” Dabrowski said. “That’s simply too short a time for county clerks to do their work properly and correct errors on time.”
