Will County judge dismisses GOP clerk candidate’s election fraud lawsuit

A Will County judge dismissed an election fraud case Thursday filed by the losing candidate in the 2022 race for Will County clerk that claimed mathematic formulas showed the final vote count was fraudulent.

Republican Gretchen Fritz filed the lawsuit Dec. 28, claiming she believes “mistakes and fraud have been committed in the casting and counting of ballots” in the race because her opponent, Democratic Will County Clerk Lauren Staley Ferry, received more votes than Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Judge John Anderson wrote the case “is, in sum and substance, an attack on the legitimacy and security of our elections.”

“Setting aside the electorate’s voice in the County Clerk’s race based on how many votes someone else got in some other race, and based on mathematical probability analyses would disenfranchise all voters who voted and who did nothing wrong in exercising their right to vote,” Anderson wrote.

The judge said Fritz sought “an extraordinary remedy to match her extraordinary claims” by asking the court to declare the Will County clerk’s office vacant and order a new election conducted with only paper ballots that are hand counted.

The allegations of fraud being predetermined by an algorithm lack specificity as to who created it, who loaded the algorithm into the machines and how, “and a host of other details that are necessary to adequately allege fraud,” Anderson wrote.

The allegations ignore the fact Will County uses paper ballots, Anderson wrote, so if Fritz believes the machine totals were inaccurate she could ask for a recount of those ballots.

Staley Ferry’s attorney, Burt Odelson, said Odelson said the order was “a big win for democracy, the rule of law, and rational thought.”

“I’m happy that the judge dismissed the case because it was such a frivolous case,” Staley Ferry said.

Fritz’s attorney, David Shestokas, said he disagreed with the judge’s decision. Having read the judge’s written ruling issued later in the day, Shestokas declined further comment except to say Anderson had been fair, attentive and thoughtful in his opinion.

But Shestokas said the opinion ends with dates in April for the parties to respond and said he’d pursue a motion to reconsider before taking the case to the appellate court.

The lawsuit cited an analysis by Walter Daugherity, senior lecturer emeritus in computer science and engineering with Texas A&M University, who determined the vote totals were “artificially contrived according to a predetermined plan or algorithm.”

It also relied on Edward Solomon, who the lawsuit states analyzed the Will County clerk election results and found they “are not the result of a free and fair election.”

“The ‘analyses’ allegedly performed by Solomon and Daugherity offer ‘expertise’ that is no more valuable than that which a person with basic arithmetic skills could provide,” Anderson wrote in his opinion. “Illinois law provides a variety of tools which can actually produce definitive proof of vote counting fraud, such as recounts and in-person election monitoring — yet Ms. Fritz does not request of rely on any of that.”

Odelson, who has been an election law attorney for 50 years, said in court Thursday he had “never ever” seen a case like this one, which he said was not based on facts or presented specific allegations but seemingly came from a “cosmic ray from Mars.”

Odelson said Solomon presented mathematical theories on elections that have been debunked in other election cases.

A previous analysis by Solomon is part of a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against One America News Network, after Solomon told the network the results in Fulton County, Georgia, for the 2020 presidential election “can only have been done by an algorithm.”

“It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of effort. It’s a conspiracy,” Odelson said.

While the lawsuit argued Staley Ferry received more votes than Pritzker, Odelson said, it failed to mention that Fritz received more votes than Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey as well as Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, secretary of state and comptroller.

Shestokas said there is no statutory requirement to plead who, how and where election fraud occurred.

During the hearing, Anderson asked Shestokas if this case focuses solely on the clerk’s race. Shestokas said “the other elections are not at issue.”

Shestokas said there is “an evolving area of study” to detect election fraud through “election forensics.”

“Math is math. Math is factual,” Shestokas said. “At this point, no one is disputing the actual math.”

Anderson asked Shestokas how he should interpret the fact that Daugherity provided signed documentation of his work but Solomon did not. Shestokas agreed Solomon did not sign an affidavit, but stated “math is math.”

“If Adolf Hitler says “2+2=4″ the world would agree with him even if they generally don’t,” Shestokas said.

Shestokas said the case does not state allegations of how the fraud happened, but compared the lawsuit to the role a coroner has in identifying a dead body. In election cases in Nevada and Arizona, Shestokas said those cases failed because the lawyers speculated as to how the election fraud happened.

“Our position is we have mathematical, forensic proof that the election was not chosen by the people,” Shestokas said. “It shouldn’t be dismissed because it’s convenient. It should be heard.”

While Shestokas argues the election wasn’t decided by the people, Odelson said he also doesn’t state who cast the ballots.

“There’s no mistakes, no fraud or irregularities,” Odelson said.