Cunningham says he's not ready to give up the fight
Jack Cunningham is legally not a candidate for the 11th Congressional District, an appellate court ruled Wednesday. But the late nature of the decision might actually afford Cunningham two routes back into the race after Tuesday's primary.
The First District Appellate Court agreed with a recommendation made by Illinois State Board of Election officials earlier this week in throwing out hundreds of nominating petition signatures deemed to be improperly notarized. That left Cunningham without enough valid signatures to be a legal candidate.
However, the court issued no mandate for polling places to put up any signs or other notices to voters on Tuesday informing them that votes for Cunningham won't be counted. The court's decision comes too late to wipe Cunningham's name from ballots and reprogram electronic voting machines. In other words, many voters may still end up casting ballots for Cunningham.
The result could either be a path to the Illinois Supreme Court or the use of the Tuesday primary as a poll of sorts for Cunningham to decide if he'll run as an Independent on the November ballot.
If Cunningham ends up getting more votes than his Republican rival, Judy Biggert, then Cunningham may choose to appeal the appellate court's decision to the Illinois Supreme Court. And he'd be doing so knowing that if the court rules in his favor, he'd move on as the winner in the Republican contest.
However, if Cunningham doesn't receive more votes than Biggert, then, technically, Cunningham can say he didn't lose. That has value. The loser of a party primary can't legally be slated by another major party in the same contest, Cunningham said. But Cunningham wouldn't have that obstacle.
He would, however, have the burden of collecting about 5,000 new nominating petition signatures to run as an independent. That's nearly 10 times the number of valid signatures he needed to run as a Republican. Cunningham said he'd undertake that quest with lessons learned.
“There's no question that mistakes were made,” Cunningham said Wednesday. “But it's really been pushed to the nth degree in this court battle. I haven't given up my desire to represent the people. When I move forward, I'm not going to use the same people to collect those new signatures I can tell you that.”
Tuesday's vote will guide Cunningham's actions heading to November. He promised a more active campaign once the legal battle is over.
“This court battle really cut my campaigning down,” he said. “I think there was a really good chance I could've won this. I'm not giving up. I'm telling people to still vote for me. I've even got people putting up my signs even today. I want people to vote their conscience on Tuesday.”
John Fogarty is the attorney for the people who originally objected to Cunningham's petitions. He said Cunningham may run as an Independent, but he'll believe it when it actually happens.
“A lot of these guys when they get bounced say I'm going to run as an Independent because of the emotions of the moment,” Fogarty said. “But actually doing that is rare because it's such an arduous task.”
Fogarty said he hopes the state board of elections takes it upon itself to tell polling places they must somehow inform voters that Cunningham isn't a legal candidate on Tuesday's ballots. That directive could still come later this week.