Mount Prospect to return to non-primary system

Mount Prospect residents overwhelmingly want to return to a non-primary local election system.

With all 43 village precincts reporting Tuesday night, 74 percent or 5,059 voters declared a desire to return to straightforward municipal elections with no primaries. About 26 percent, or 1,788 voters, thought otherwise. All vote totals are unofficial.

"Mount Prospect residents are very interested in their government," said Mayor Irvana Wilks. "They watch village board meetings. They read the newspaper. Clearly they wanted the village to run their elections, not the state."

In spring 2009, based on what the village said was a new interpretation of state regulations, Mount Prospect officials ran the local election under a primary system, which calls for primaries to whittle down the candidate field when too many candidates file for one municipal office.

In the end, not enough candidates filed to trigger a primary. But the village had to move up its filing period, which officials say created some confusion.

The referendum results also change the number of signatures needed to get on the municipal ballot, to 1 percent of all registered voters, or about 300 signatures.

The next local election will be in April 2011. Only Palatine, Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates use local primaries.