Judge to hear case on Link's ballot eligibility
A Cook County judge could decide today whether veteran state Sen. Terry Link will be bumped from next month's primary ballot because signatures on his candidate paperwork may have been forged.
Judge Paul A. Karkula will consider the case -- filed by a Link political foe -- at 2:30 p.m. at the Daley Center in Chicago. It's an appeal of an Illinois elections board decision that allowed Link to stay on the Feb. 5 ballot.
Link, who has weathered hearings, criticisms in the media and even picketing at his Waukegan home since the complaints first arose in November, is confident he'll remain a candidate.
"I feel very good about it," said Link, who's represented the 30th District in Lake and Cook counties since 1997.
Jerry Johnson, the one-time Democratic challenger who originated the case against Link, said he's "cautiously optimistic" heading into today's hearing.
"I am not expecting anything at all," said Johnson, who last month lost his place on the ballot because of problems with his petition. "I just have to wait and see."
The case landed in Karkula's courtroom after the elections board rejected Johnson's attempt to have the senator's name removed from the ballot.
Johnson has said Link's document contains the names of dead people and area residents who've denied signing the form.
Additionally, some signatures on the sheets are in alphabetical order, which is unusual for campaign petitions, Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller has said.
Waller's office is investigating the complaints.
Link -- leader of Lake County's Democratic Party and the Senate's majority caucus chairman -- has said he did not circulate any of his candidate petition forms. Records indicate campaign workers and volunteers did.
In a split decision last month, the elections board agreed many of the signatures were invalid, but didn't reject enough of them to have Link removed from the ballot.
The board also rejected Johnson's claim the illegitimate signatures on Link's petition indicated a pattern of fraud that should lead to the entire document being discarded. That allegation wasn't considered because it wasn't part of Johnson's original claim, according to court records.
Johnson's legal team maintains the board erred in not considering the bad signatures to be a pattern of fraud, according to court documents.
Adam Lasker, one of Johnson's attorneys, expects Karkula will decide the matter today. If Karkula upholds the election board's ruling, Johnson could appeal again, this time to the state appellate court.