Daily Herald opinion: Clock is ticking in DuPage: With an election approaching, only the courts can break impasse between board and clerk

If nothing else, a DuPage County judge’s refusal last week to insert himself in the long-running feud between the county clerk and the county board reinforces the sense of urgency for resolving the dispute.

The county owes two vendors of election services more than $230,000 for work they have done for the county clerk’s office, and the companies say they will not provide services for the 2026 election unless they are paid. But, saying the contracts under which the vendors were hired may not be valid, county officials refuse to pay the bills.

Clerk Jean Kaczmarek sought a temporary restraining order requiring the bills be paid, but last week, DuPage County Judge Bryan Chapman said he couldn’t do that because the ruling is inherently connected to the outcome of an unresolved Kaczmarek lawsuit against the county over what she sees as illegal constraints on her autonomy.

Make no mistake, the roots of the crisis looming for the county lie at the feet of Kaczmarek, who stubbornly insists that she should not have to abide by a reasonable, indeed prudent, county policy requiring that significant contracts be subject to public bids. If her case is so important to good government, she could easily pursue it in court until a ruling is issued and in the meantime abide by policies that are indisputably legal instead of demanding that county officials follow practices that may not be. She has not chosen that path.

The county has been waiting since September 2024 for a special prosecutor’s decision in the case, after State’s Attorney Robert Berlin asked for an investigation of whether Kaczmarek’s office violated the state’s competitive bidding laws and whether criminal charges are warranted. Now, the two election services vendors continue to await payment while the clerk’s lawsuit against the county works its way through the system — all on the brink of an election just five months away.

As the prosecutor’s office argued in the case before Chapman, “Elections do not occur at unpredictable times; the clerk has been aware of the dates for the 2026 elections for quite some time and has chosen not to prepare for them through a bidding process where she could hire qualified vendors. The clerk created this ‘emergency’ which she now requests the courts remedy.”

But the issue pressing on the public interest now is not the matter of whom to blame. It is the question of what important work of the clerk’s office — especially that for an approaching March 2026 election — can get done. A Kaczmarek spokesman said the officials in her office are so confident she will prevail, they aren’t bothering to seek potential replacements for the vendors whose contracts could be declared invalid or who may not complete their work. What if those officials are wrong?

For now, the county’s chief procurement officer has said there is still time to contract for services for the spring 2026 election, but obviously every day that passes eats into that time.

This issue has disrupted the business of DuPage County and the DuPage County clerk’s office — and, perhaps most unfairly, the contractors who entered into business with the clerk’s office in good faith — for more than two years. As Chapman’s ruling makes obvious, the courts are the only alternative for breaking the impasse.

We can only hope they will complete their work in time.