Plenty of challenges to Aurora council candidates

A candidate for Aurora alderman at-large has asked a judge to rule on whether his opponent's nominating petitions were properly notarized, in an effort to kick the opponent off the ballot.

Judd Lofchie filed a request Wednesday asking Kane County Judge Thomas Mueller to reverse the Aurora Election Commission's Dec. 21 decision that allowed Alderman Richard Irvin to remain on the April 5 ballot.

Lofchie contends 400 of the signatures on Irvin's nominating petitions are invalid because Irvin notarized the pages himself. He says state law prohibits a notary from “acknowledging any instrument to which he is a party.”

“The Act is already out there. That there is seemingly no existing case law to support it in practice is, of course, no reason to ignore the Act itself,” Lofchie said Friday.

The AEC denied the objection because of the lack of Illinois case law on the matter, he said.

Lofchie said he wasn't going to protest Irvin's candidacy further until he found out a supporter of Irvin's intended to protest his. That supporter's objections against Lofchie were overruled by the AEC.

“We really should be focusing on the issues,” Lofchie said.

Aurora resident Peggy Hicks, of the Illinois Coalition for Community Services, filed a judicial request Thursday to overturn an AEC decision to keep Lofchie on the ballot.

And in the 6th Ward, Alderman Michael Saville is asking the court to remove his opponent, Isaac Count De Money Wilson, from the ballot.

All the cases have been assigned to Mueller's courtroom, and were given court dates of April 19. Lofchie filed an emergency motion for his matter to be heard earlier, and for an order prohibiting the election commission from printing ballots until the matter is resolved.

Irvin and Hicks could not be reached for comment Friday.

Saville asserts the AEC did not follow election law when ruling on two paperwork-related aspects of Wilson's nominating petitions.