On Wednesday, candidates for Illinois' fast approaching gubernatorial election met for debate at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) campus. Moderated by the Illinois Free and Equal Elections Coalition, the event was unusual in that the invite included all gubernatorial hopefuls; however, there was no appearance from major party candidates: Republican candidate Judy Baar Topinka and incumbent Democrat Rod Blagojevich.
Many Illinoisans would be surprised to learn that there are in fact nine candidates running this year for the state's governor post (excessive advertising suggests merely two). The two major candidates certainly have significantly better funded campaigns, yet money, it seems, is not their only advantage.
"Not only was this debate held to bring about the issues, but it also allows the candidates to meet one another to come to the understanding that ballot access is a huge issue that needs to be addressed in Illinois," says Christina Tobin, founder of Illinois Free and Equal.
Tobin cites Richard Winger of "Ballot Access News" who identifies Illinois as one of the top three most restrictive in terms of ballot access laws.
Working as a ballot access coordinator for the Illinois Libertarian party in 1998 and 2000, and Ralph Nader in the Green Party for Illinois' presidential ballot access in 2004, Tobin claims that state employees were directed by both major Democrat and Republican state officials to undermine these campaigns and keep them off the ballot. Although she was able to show proof of these allegations, enormous legal fees prevented Tobin from pursuing the cases further.
"I really have seen first and foremost the similarities between this two-party bullying," says Tobin. "There is really no difference when it comes what these two parties will do in order to get [independent candidates] off the ballot and deprive the voters of more choices and the real issues they want to hear."
The Illinois Green Party (ILPG) felt the ballot access pinch this year with their push for candidacy, and the law was only the first obstacle.
Illinois requires 25,000 signatures within a 90 day period to get a gubernatorial candidate in a new party on the November ballot. Garnering nearly 40,000 signatures before the year's deadline, the ILGP were able to far exceed the requirement; however, accusations from the Blagojevich campaign that many of the signatures were invalid had put another burden on the emerging third party.
Calling the petition dispute "frivolous" and "unwarranted" the Green Party was still able to show the legitimacy of their signatures, but at a great cost to their comparably small campaign and staff. The Illinois Democratic Party later dropped their dispute and the State Board of Electors gave official ballot approval of the ILGP in August.
"First we had to get five times as many petitions as the other two candidates. Then we had this petition challenge to overcome which tied down our volunteers and our financial sources for weeks—resources that could have used to promote this campaign," ILPG gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney told the Epoch Times in August. "They keep throwing one hurdle after another at us."
Other candidates present at the UIC debate included Mark McCoy of the Libertarian Party, Randy Stufflebeam of the Constitution Party, and Independent candidate, Marvin Koch. While their names will not appear on the ballot, they have still qualified as official write-in candidates (three other contenders are also official write-ins). According to Tobin, many independents have lost what could have been greater visibility and exposure in this election due to their dominant party rivals. After November 7 they plan to take action.
"We anticipate filing some very large lawsuits after this upcoming election combining all these cases between the Libertarians, the Greens, the Moderates and the Constitutionalists [due to] the racketeering that the Democratic and Republican parties have put against the third parties here in Illinois," says Tobin.
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