Challenger off ballot in Schaumburg Twp.

The would-be primary challenger to Schaumburg Township Highway Commissioner Robert Fecarotta is off the February ballot.

The township electoral board ruled John Salmassi can't run in a Republican primary because he voted Democratic in the 2008 primary and in several previous primaries.

If the decision stands, it appears there will be no need for a Feb. 24 primary election anywhere in Northwest suburban Cook County leading up to the April 7 general election.

But Salmassi said Friday he's thinking about going to court.

"We don't live in a Communist country," he said. "You can change parties. What's wrong with that?"

Salmassi, a retired Chicago policeman now living in Roselle, also questioned the fairness of the unanimous decision, since the three-member electoral board that made it is made up of incumbent Republican township officials, just like Fecarotta. All of them circulated nominating petitions for Fecarotta, who filed the objection against Salmassi.

But Mary Wroblewski, township supervisor and chairwoman of the electoral board, said the board went strictly by the book, both in its makeup and in following its attorney's advice that Salmassi didn't meet the requirements to make it on the ballot.

Wroblewski noted the "mischief" that could occur if any Democrat could run in any GOP primary, or vice versa.

Township Clerk Timothy Heneghan, who also voted to oust Salmassi, acknowledged it was "kind of an uneasy situation."

But Heneghan also said the board was very fair and would have kept Salmassi on the ballot had the attorney advised them to do so.

In most local elections, which are generally nonpartisan, primaries are only held to narrow the field if a certain number of candidates file for a given seat.

Most other Republican, Democratic and Green party candidates for township offices in Cook County will be chosen during party caucuses on Tuesday, Jan. 13.