Candidates to stay on St. Charles ballot
St. Charles City Council candidates looking to eliminate some or all of their competition on the April 5 ballot did not find a sympathetic electoral board Monday night. All candidates who filed to run in the general election survived their petition challenges.
In total, four candidates faced elimination. Ward 2 candidate Rita Ann Payleitner, Ward 3 candidate Michael Henriksen, Ward 4 candidate Steven Gaugel and Ward 5 incumbent candidate Maureen Lewis defended against a slew of alleged election code violations involving the signatures they collected on nominating petitions.
Most of the challenges involved nuances designed to invalidate enough signatures from the petitions to drop a candidate below the minimum required in their ward. One of the consistent themes involved a petition sheets protesters believed confused voters because they indicated the city would host a February primary election before the general election. St. Charles does not have a primary election. However, the sheets used by the candidates in all the races were provided by St. Charles at the suggestion of the Kane County clerk's office. With that background, objections based on confusion regarding a primary election were dismissed in all cases Monday night.
Mayor Don DeWitte led an electoral board consisting of City Clerk Nancy Garrison and senior Alderman Jim Martin. Martin stepped off the board during his challenge of Gaugel's petitions. He was replaced by Alderman Dan Stellato.
Indeed, Martin was the closest to being successful in eliminating Gaugel, his only competition for winning re-election to the Ward 4 seat. Martin forced a comparison of signatures on Gaugel's nominating petitions to the actual voter registration card signatures. Gaugel produced several sworn affidavits to deflect some of Martin's challenges. Martin was successful in eliminating four of Gaugel's signatures. He needed to eliminate 11. No other petition challenge came anywhere near that close to booting a candidate from the ballot.
Candidates who filed petition challenges will have 10 days to appeal the written rulings in each case.