Aurora Twp. supervisor race gets muddy

Aurora Township Democrats hosted perhaps the closest and most confusing vote this week since "hanging chad" entered the lexicon.

Now the Illinois State Board of Elections and attorneys for the disgruntled may be brought in to sort it all out.

The confusion centers around the race for Aurora Township supervisor. There were four candidates: Township Trustee Christina Campos, current Supervisor Annie Craig, former Kane County Board member Paul Greviskes and Kane County Board member Bonnie Kunkel.

A first round of voting to narrow the field left Campos with the most votes and Greviskes in second. Kunkel was eliminated. Craig received one fewer vote than Greviskes. However, that was thanks to a single provisional ballot cast in favor of Greviskes by a voter who was later disqualified for having voted in a Republican primary within the past year.

In the second round of voting between Campos and Greviskes, the provisional ballot was not allowed. Some voters cast "spoiled" ballots with Craig as a write-in believing she deserved to be in a runoff. Craig's husband, Frank, said the problems started with voters not signing affidavits attesting to them living in the township and not pulling a Republican ballot within the last year. A template for such an affidavit for use at caucuses is included in Illinois State Board of Elections caucus guidelines. Frank Craig also said the vote lacked integrity as no one ensured voters only took and cast one ballot. There was even a moment when one ballot box was opened and emptied into another ballot box to make room for more votes in another contest.

"This whole thing was flawed," Frank Craig said. "There is no way to trust the process. We are exploring our options on what to do."

The second round of voting between Campos and Greviskes proceeded and yielded an even closer vote - a tie.

Aurora Township Democrat Chairman Alex Arroyo then cast the tiebreaking vote for Campos after explaining to the caucus that Aurora Township Republicans would have multiple Hispanics on the ballot, so Aurora Township Democrats should have at least one.

"He shouldn't have put the race issue in there," said Sylvia Leonburger, a Kane County Board member from Aurora who was present and nominated Craig during the caucus. She also happens to be Mexican.

"Had he not said that it would have been the end of it," she added. "He alienated just about everybody in the room. It was insulting. We don't have to win that way. With everything that happened we look like the laughingstock of Illinois."

Leonburger's son, Jason, served as an election judge for the caucus. He awaited guidance from the Illinois State Board of Elections Thursday after contacting them when he felt uncomfortable with how the provisional ballot that booted Craig was handled.

By his recollection, the provisional ballot emerged from another judge's pocket and was included after all the other ballots in the first round were counted. Only four of the nine judges signed off on the allowing the provisional ballot, including Jason Leonburger. The other judges were still counting ballots from other contests and weren't included. Leonburger regrets his decision.

"We never got the full explanation as to why it was provisional," he said. "For the sake of speed, I said fine. It was allowed and it shouldn't have been allowed. It was just all bad."

Arroyo would not comment on the course of events regarding the provisional ballot, but said he wouldn't change a thing.

"The caucus was run the same way it was run four years ago," Arroyo said. "It's over. There's some hurt feelings, but we've got to move forward as a party."