Palatine sets signature requirement for candidates

Palatine Councilman Aaron Del Mar recalls running for the District 1 seat in 2009 and collecting around 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Turns out, he needed just a fraction of those names, but no one at the time could definitively tell him how many were required.

That's why the council Monday approved setting a minimum number of signatures required for nominating petitions - well in time for next spring's election.

"I remember calling all over the place trying to figure out what the number was," Del Mar said. "Everybody had a different answer."

From now on, a person running for a district council seat will have to collect 125 valid signatures. The amount jumps to 750 for candidates running for the at-large offices of mayor and clerk. That's typically equivalent to a voter turnout of between 5 and 8 percent in Palatine, which is a common range in setting minimum required signatures.

While Illinois election code provides direction for municipalities, Palatine proved a unique case because of its managerial form of government, nonpartisan elections and district system. The nuances meant there wasn't one provision that could clearly be applied to the village.

"Every candidate had to come up with their own estimate," village attorney Bob Kenny said.

Objections to signatures on nominating petitions in Palatine elections have been rare, so the village hasn't been forced to address the issue. But officials agreed it was time to clear up the confusion.

The one dissenting vote ended up being Del Mar, who argued for a maximum number of signatures, too. He said doing so would save time for staff who have to comb over signatures in the event of an objection. Candidates should do their best to hand in a high percentage of valid signatures instead of hundreds or thousands of invalid ones, Del Mar said.

He also wanted to see the requirement reflect voter turnout, but other officials said the number of voters isn't likely to greatly fluctuate since Palatine is built-out and that the ordinance can be reviewed in the future.