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LaPlante appointed to challenge Elliott for DuPage board seat

The DuPage Democratic Party has appointed Lynn LaPlante to challenge Republican incumbent Tim Elliott for a District 4 seat on the county board.

LaPlante will enter the race with less than 70 days before the November general election, but the Glen Ellyn candidate says she will lean on a campaign infrastructure she assembled for a primary contest in which she was the runner-up by a razor-thin margin.

Precinct committeemen in District 4 chose LaPlante to replace Hadiya Afzal, the Democratic nominee who formally dropped out of the race earlier this week.

The party filed the necessary paperwork with the county clerk's office Wednesday, the last day to submit a new candidate to appear on the ballot.

Democrats are seeking to build on the gains from the election two years ago. All seven Democrats on the 18-member county board are women; all 11 Republicans are men.

"It's really important to add more diversity to the board and to have our county board reflect its constituents in a much more accurate way," said LaPlante, a violist who captured 4,399 votes to Afzal's 4,447 in the primary.

Elliott is positioning himself as an independent voice. The attorney and former Glen Ellyn village trustee is vying for his second term on the county board.

"What I believe is that most of the problems that we face on the county board are not Republican problems or Democratic problems," he said. "They're not men problems or women problems. They're the problems that everyone in DuPage County faces equally. We want responsive government. We want good services."

Four years ago, he won a GOP primary against an opponent endorsed by the county board chairman.

"I know what it's like to run as an outsider even within my own party," Elliott said.

LaPlante defeated two other hopefuls to become the top choice of a group of 70 mostly Milton Township precinct committeemen who voted Tuesday night. Precinct committeemen from York and Bloomingdale townships also attended.

Two others seriously considered running, but in the end did not, DuPage Democratic Party Chairwoman Cynthia Borbas said.

Afzal, a progressive recent college graduate, announced her decision to bow out of the race last month in the wake of backlash to a social media post about protests in Portland, Oregon.

Afzal tweeted that she was repeatedly watching a video of a clash between protesters and officers and "laughing every single time." The clip appears to show a federal officer throwing a projectile over a barricade and then being hit in the head by a projectile.

Conservative social media personality Andy Ngo shared a screenshot of Afzal's tweet to his Twitter followers on July 26.

District 4 covers all or parts of Addison, Bloomingdale, Carol Stream, Glen Ellyn, Glendale Heights, Lisle, Lombard, Wheaton and Winfield.

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