Months after election, the fight for the final Buffalo Grove village board seat goes on

Nearly five months after he was sworn in for a second term on the Buffalo Grove village board, Trustee David Weidenfeld is continuing to fight for his seat, only now in the courts instead of the campaign trail.

In the latest twist in the still-contested election, Weidenfeld is asking a Cook County court to throw out a legal challenge to his victory filed by candidate Soojae Lee.

Weidenfeld said Monday he decided to file “because they haven't done anything with the case. It's called dismissal for want of prosecution.”

A hearing on his request is set for Thursday morning at the Daley Center in Chicago.

Lee, who finished just two votes behind Weidenfeld for the third of three seats at stake in the April 2 election, is asking a judge to order a recount of all ballots in the contest.

He contends that a partial recount held earlier this year indicates some votes for him may have gone uncounted. In Vernon Township, for example, he argues that one voter intending to vote for him put an “x” on the ballot oval instead of filling it in as required. Twenty-three other voters filled in only a portion of the oval, he says.

Lee also alleges that in one Wheeling Township precinct, 18 voters' signatures do not match the signature on the voter registration document.

One of the holdups stems from Lee's filing in both Lake and Cook counties. The judge in the Lake County case transferred that portion of the Lee's challenge to Cook County. That consolidation, however, seems not to have taken place.

Lee, who attended Monday's village board committee-of-the-whole meeting, called Weidenfeld's action ”kind of a waste of time.”

“There is not much I can do” to move the case along, since he is waiting for the Cook and Lake cases to be consolidated, Lee added.