Naperville council candidates Derek McDaniel and Nag Jaiswal to remain on April 4 ballot following challenges
Nag Jaiswal and Derek McDaniel will appear on the April 4 ballot as Naperville City Council candidates, but Tiffany Stephens’ bid for mayor remains up in the air until Friday.
The Municipal Officers Electoral Board, made up of Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico, Councilman Paul Hinterlong and City Clerk Pam Gallahue, met Monday to hear objections filed by Naperville residents challenging the nominating petitions filed by the three candidates.
In order to be placed on an election ballot, a candidate must gather signatures from residents within the governmental district they wish to serve and submit the paperwork based on state guidelines.
Because Naperville resident Elizabeth Zega dropped her objections Friday to Jaiswal’s petitions, the board unanimously voted to dismiss her challenge paving the way for Jaiswal to appear on the ballot.
The board voted 2-1 that McDaniel could remain on the ballot over objections from Naperville resident Arian Ahmadpour that McDaniel’s signature sheets were not “numbered consecutively” as required by state statute.
None of the pages showed any number, though the bottom of each page provided the words “Sheet No.” and a blank for a candidate to add a number.
Ahmadpour’s attorney Ross Secler said, beyond being required by law, numbering pages provides safeguards that uphold the integrity of process and prevents tampering.
Attorney Keri-Lyn Krafthefer, representing McDaniel, argued that the objection is “hypertechnical” and no one is suggesting any confusion or tampering occurred as a result of the lack of unnumbered pages.
In addition, she said, Illinois courts favor voter access and therefore McDaniel’s petitions should be accepted.
Siding with McDaniel, Chirico said he could understand the importance of numbering statewide petitions that are hundreds of pages long to help in the search for challenged signatures. But in this case, with only 28 sheets of signatures, the lack of numbered pages doesn’t hinder any search, he said.
“I just don’t see this as being in any way something that would deny the voters choice for this type of omission,” Chirico said.
Hinterlong agreed with the mayor and said the intent of the law is not to deter anyone from running.
However, Gallahue said she doesn’t believe you get to pick and choose which parts of the law you’re going to follow.
“To me there is no room for interpretation here. The election code states that pages shall be numbered consecutively,” Gallahue said.
To substantially comply with the code when an entire requirement was omitted, she said, calls the integrity of the electoral process into question.
“We should make every effort to keep Naperville’s nonpartisan process distinct from votes at other levels of government,” Gallahue said.
A separate challenge that McDaniel’s petitions were not secured or fastened properly was dropped by the objector after City Attorney Michael DiSanto showed that the paperwork was attached together with a metal clip.
Ahmadpour also is challenging Stephens’ candidacy, alleging she resided in Aurora until July and therefore is in violation of the requirement that Naperville candidates live in the city at least a year before running for office.
The board hearing on Stephens’ case is continued until 10 a.m. Friday while attorneys on both sides of the challenge gather more evidence.
