Flood waiting to decide on recount in Kane judge race
Elizabeth Flood, a candidate seeking the GOP nod for a Kane County Circuit Court judge seat, has broken her silence, saying a 44-vote deficit likely will stand when votes become official next week, but she will wait until then before making a decision on a recount.
As it stands now, Republican Thomas Hartwell will face Mike Noland, an Elgin Democrat, in the Nov. 6 general election.
"Aurora may not verify their results until next week, but I have no reason to believe the results will change," Flood wrote in a Facebook post this week. "However, I owe it to my campaign to see the certified numbers before making any final decision to concede or request a discovery recount. I will update you all at that time as well."
According to unofficial results, Hartwell has 11,980 votes and Flood, who has served as an associate judge in Kane County since 2013, has 11,936.
David Kliment, a former Kane County public defender and associate judge since 2010, finished a distant third in the contest for the Republican nomination.
Noland, a former state senator from Elgin, easily defeated Lark Cowart, a prosecutor at the Kane County state's attorney's office, for the Democratic nomination.
The Aurora Election Commission will certify and canvass its election results by Tuesday.
As of this week, it had received about 24 absentee and other ballots in the two weeks following the March 20 primary.
Hartwell, a South Elgin attorney who has served as Kane County Circuit Court Clerk since 2012, has said he is confident voters chose him but would not declare victory until Flood conceded or all the votes were counted. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
Kane County has 14 circuit judges, who are elected by voters.
Circuit judges, in addition to presiding over their respective courtrooms, help set policy and appoint associate judges. Kane has 17 associate judges.
Judge David Akemann plans to retire from his circuit seat in December 2018 and the winner of the November election will be sworn in. No Democrat has ever won a countywide judge seat in Kane County.