South Elgin Trustee DiFulvio kicked off ballot
A judge has ruled that a longtime South Elgin trustee will be removed from the spring ballot for failing to number the pages within his nominating petitions.
Kane County Judge John Dalton made the decision Monday to disqualify Bill DiFulvio from inclusion on the ballot. DiFulvio was seeking his fourth term in office.
Former South Elgin Trustee Gary Hyman and resident Warren Redmond had originally brought the case to the South Elgin Electoral Board’s attention in January.
They argued DiFulvio was violating the Illinois Election Code for failing to list the numbers on his two pages of petitions, but the electoral board kept him on the ballot anyway. The board said there was no evidence of fraud or a possibility of voter confusion within DiFulvio’s petitions.
That’s when Hyman and Redmond took the matter to court.
In his ruling Dalton wrote that while he was sympathetic to the electoral board’s argument, case law has said that a “candidate’s complete failure to include any page numbers in a nominating petition is not substantial compliance with the election code.”
Incumbents John Sweet, Scott Richmond and challengers Robert Sauceda and Jennifer Barconi remain on the ballot for the three contested board seats.
DiFulvio’s options are to appeal Dalton’s decision or run as a write-in, said Derke Price, the attorney who represented the electoral board.
Neither DiFulvio nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment Monday.