St. Charles mayoral race generates complaints

A heated mayoral race in St. Charles generated the most electioneering complaints to the Kane County state's attorney last week, officials said Tuesday.

State's Attorney John Barsanti said the bulk of the complaints were made by mayoral challenger Jotham Stein's campaign, which reported the removal of several political signs near polling places. He said his staff responded to the sites and took measurements to establish whether the signs were at least 100 feet away, as election law requires.

"Some (signs) were taken down that shouldn't have been taken down," Barsanti said, adding that the validity of other complaints was unclear because the signs had already been relocated.

Stein was defeated by incumbent Mayor Don DeWitte.

In all, there were 18 calls to the state's attorney's election hotline, seven of which were related to electioneering. Complaints were also filed in Aurora, Carpentersville, Dundee, Geneva and Elgin. They covered a variety of issues, including equipment problems.

"It was a lot less than we usually get, but it was a smaller election," Barsanti said. "I thought it was pretty typical."

Barsanti noted just one complaint was made, in Carpentersville, involving assistance for voters who do not speak English. He said similar problems "seem to have lessened to a great degree" since the federal government began requiring bilingual assistance for Kane County voters in recent years.

Overall, the complaints were the result of simple misunderstandings about election law, Barsanti said: "It's human error, I think."