Dupage County Republican Primary Ballot

Most Dupage County Board Candidates Run Unopposed In Spring Primaries

Most DuPage County Board candidates will breeze through the spring primary elections and on to next November’s general race, as just two Republican primary races and no Democratic races are set to take place.

On the Republican ballot, a total of 17 candidates are running for 12 open seats across DuPage County’s six districts. For the March 15 Republican primary, 10 of these seats will be uncontested, allowing candidates for those spots to sail on through the Nov. 8 general election, in which most will face a Democratic opponent.

On the Democratic ballot, nine candidates have filed to run unopposed for county board seats during the Democratic primary.

DuPage County candidates were required to file nominating petitions by Nov. 30, which led to a flood of candidates filing petitions with the DuPage County Election Commission on Monday. As many as eight county board candidates filed on the last possible day.

The first of two Republican primary races will take place in District 2, where four Republican candidates are vying for the opportunity to challenge Democratic incumbent Liz Chaplin in November’s race. Chaplin, who was first elected to the county board in 2012, is unchallenged in the Democratic primary.

Daily horoscope for November 15, 2021 »

District 2 comprises areas of Lombard, Villa Park, Elmhurst, Oak Brook, Westmont, Clarendon Hills, Hinsdale, Downers Grove, Lisle, Woodridge and Naperville.

Judge dismisses gun charge against Kyle Rittenhouse »

Dupage County Board To Put Election Equipment To Vote Again

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The DuPage County Board is preparing to put election equipment to a vote again in the coming weeks after rejecting a bid from a vendor over what some officials describe as a questionable procurement process.

A decision made last month to deny awarding the contract to Hart InterCivic has prompted the county to take another look at its vendor selection process.

Rep Mazzochi Dupage House Republicans Renew Push To Get The Deceased Off The Voter Rolls

After Democrats lowered vote by mail standards, nine dead DuPage County residents requested vote by mail ballots for upcoming election

During the legislative debate involving Democrats bill to lower vote by mail requirements, State Representative Deanne Mazzochi urged Democrats to instead adopt standards from her bill, HB 2513, which obligates county clerks to take the deceased off the voter rolls. House Democrats ignored that request and now, fears of voter fraud have come to fruition. This week DuPage County States Attorney Bob Berlin announced that his office has been notified of at least nine different instances of voter fraud stemming from vote by mail ballot requests from the dead.

House Democrats used COVID as an excuse to lower vote by mail standards, and wouldnt enact critical steps to prevent voter fraud. It is bad enough that they ignored many House Republican recommendations to preserve the integrity of this falls election. But it is utterly embarrassing that they wouldnt agree to ensure our voter rolls are clean enough to keep the dead off the rolls, said Mazzochi. Our concerns have now been justified: DuPage County States Attorney Bob Berlin is actively investigating nine different instances involving ballot requests from people who have passed away. This is illegal forging a name to a ballot is a Class 3 Felony in Illinois. These are just the first ones who were caught how many more will fall through the cracks?

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Joseph R Biden Jr Wins Illinois

Race called by The Associated Press.

*Incumbent

The vote count has been certified in Illinois.

Calhoun County has shifted right, toward Trump, compared with 2016.

Vote share

County Primary Races Shape Up In Kane Dupage And Kendall

Monday was the last day for candidates to file to run in the 2016 general primary for county races, and dozens of candidates put their names in to be on the ballot.

Filing for county-wide offices began Nov. 23 and concluded Monday. The primary election is set for March 15, 2016.

Kane County

Suzanne Fahnestock, Kane County chief deputy clerk and director of elections, said the past week has been busy.

“Our office was busy receiving the filings, scanning the petitions and posting the positions for public viewing on the website,” Fahnestock said Tuesday.

Daily horoscope for November 15, 2021 »

Two of the county’s key Republican office holders have challengers in the spring primary. Kane County Board Chairman Chris Lauzen will face-off with challenger Kenneth Shepro, an attorney from Wayne, in the primary. Lauzen defeated two challengers in 2012, Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns in the primary and former St. Charles Mayor Sue Klinkhamer in the general election. It was Lauzen’s first bid for the office after two decades as an Illinois state senator.

Kane County Coroner Rob Russell will have a familiar contender in the Republican primary. Russell defeated Bob Tiballi in his first bid for the office in the 2012 Republican primary and went on to defeat Democratic candidate Tao Martinez in the general election. Tiballi is on the primary ballot again for the March contest.

Incumbent County Auditor Terry Hunt will face challenger Craig Lee in the GOP primary.

DuPage County

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Dupage Judge Says Auditor Race Election Recount Bill Too High Cuts By More Than Half

• Former DuPage County auditor Bob Grogan

• DuPage County Auditor William White

Former DuPage County Auditor Bob Grogan will not have to pay $289,000 up front for a recount of the 2020 race he lost.

DuPage County Judge Craig Belford on Monday denied some of the expenses County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said Grogan should pay, knocking the amount down to $112,614. And, Belford decided Grogan should only have to post half of that amount — $56,307 — in advance.

Belford said that while the court’s “paramount obligation” is to ensure there is a true and accurate vote count, “the posting of a security should never stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment of this task.”

In the county auditor’s race, Grogan, a Republican from Downers Grove, lost to Democrat William White, also of Downers Grove. Grogan had 233,046 votes to White’s 233,121 votes.

State law allows a judge to order a candidate who requests a recount to provide a bond or cash deposit to cover some or all of the costs. If the candidate wins the recount, the money is returned.

Belford denied the clerk’s request to have Grogan pay the $43,309 costs of the election-division workers who would be involved in the recount, saying the workers would be working anyway.

He also denied the $54,395 cost of renting and operating a high-speed ballot scanner. The clerk asked for $144,000 to pay 60 election judges, at $20 per hour, but Belford allowed only $79,200, at the minimum wage of $11 per hour.

Hart Dicianni Raising Big Money In The Race To Succeed Dupage County Chairman

• Greg Hart

The two Republican candidates vying to succeed DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin have collectively raised more than $800,000 in campaign cash, setting the stage for an expensive primary contest.

Greg Hart and Pete DiCianni, both sitting county board members, have drawn donor interest from across the region as the GOP hopes to regain political ground in a county that has tilted blue in recent elections.

DiCianni held an early fundraising edge over Hart, but the latest campaign finance reports show they’re virtually neck and neck in the race for money eight months before the June primary.

Hart collected $353,049 through September, according to financial disclosures filed with the state board of elections. In this month alone, his campaign reported raising $59,000, putting his total haul so far at $412,049.

Among his biggest backers, Craig Duchossois, son of Arlington Park’s chairman emeritus and a conservative benefactor, pumped $10,000 into Hart’s campaign coffers in the last quarter. The Duchossois Group moved its company headquarters from Elmhurst to Chicago about four years ago.

Hart received $1,000 from Steven Galanis, the co-founder and CEO of Cameo, a social media app where users pay for video messages from celebrities. Tonia Khouri, a former state House candidate, and Deerfield-based Walgreens also contributed $500 and $250, respectively.

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Dupage Recorder Hopeful Facing Legal Fight To Stay On The Ballot

A DuPage judge is being asked to overturn an electoral board’s decision and remove a candidate for county recorder from the March primary election ballot.

Republican recorder candidate Babette Holder Youngberg survived a challenge of her nominating petitions last month when DuPage’s electoral board ruled her name should appear on the March 17 primary ballot.

But Mark Tarnowski, the Wheaton resident who challenged Holder Youngberg’s paperwork, is appealing the decision. He has filed a petition for judicial review in DuPage circuit court.

Over the weekend, Holder Youngberg released a statement blaming her Republican primary opponent — Ron Almiron of Wheaton — for attempting to get her removed from the ballot. Almiron, who is an attorney, is representing Tarnowski in the case.

Holder Youngberg and Almiron are slated to face off in a contest to decide the GOP nominee for the recorder seat held by Republican Fred Bucholz, who is retiring. Democrat Kathleen Carrier of Carol Stream is running unopposed for her party’s nomination.

“My opponent is using last-minute desperation tactics to cheat the voters from choosing the candidate they want to send forth to the general election this November by attacking the use of my maiden name as well as my marital name on the ballot,” said Holder Youngberg, who lives in Wheaton.

Almiron didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Consolidated Election: Tuesday April 6 2021

Candidate Information

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Conservative Group Alleges Voter Fraud In Dupage County But Experts Say Evidence Is Weak

The national furor over alleged voter fraud has come to DuPage County, with a group fronted by Republican politician Jeanne Ives claiming more than 1,000 people voted in the November 2020 election using DuPage addresses where they no longer lived.

Ives said her organization, Breakthrough Ideas, compared voter records against the U.S. Postal Services national change of address database and found that 1,343 people who gave notice that they had moved prior to Election Day ended up voting from their old addresses.

Though she said her groups research isnt meant to overturn last years results, in which Democrats solidified their ascendancy of the former Republican stronghold, she suggested the alleged discrepancy might have made the difference in several close races.

Our investigation shows a lack of coherent procedures in the office, sloppiness in maintaining voter data lists and outright negligence in assuring we have fair elections in DuPage County, she said at a news conference Friday.

Ives, a former state representative who lost a Republican primary race for governor in 2018 and a congressional election last year, said she had turned the groups findings over to county prosecutors as voting from an address that is not your lawful place of residence constitutes an illegal, fraudulent vote.

The Tribune could not reach the voter for comment.

Ives said such criticism betrays an ignorance of the data.

Dupage Clerk Weighs Options After County Board Narrowly Rejects Voting System Overhaul

• DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek looks over a new mail-in ballot machine that sorts the ballots and authenticates signatures last year.Paul Valade | Staff Photographer, August 2020

The DuPage County clerk’s office had hoped to soon start training election workers on new voting equipment in preparation for the June 2022 primary.

But a bid to replace an outdated electoral system — so obsolete that it runs on Windows 2003 — fell one vote short of county board approval.

What happens next is an open question. Hardware warranty and license agreements for the aging equipment are set to expire. The county’s existing vendor, Dominion Voting, told election officials it will no longer provide support for the system beginning with the new year, Chief Deputy Clerk Adam Johnson said.

“We’ve been having discussions both internally and with other county departments to identify what the options are,” Johnson said. “And we’re still in those discussions right now.”

The clerk’s office sought board approval for a $10.6 million, 10-year contract with another voting vendor, Texas-based Hart InterCivic Inc. Eleven of the 18 board members supported the clerk’s plan during a finance committee meeting last week.

But with all the Republican board members in opposition, mostly due to the contract’s price tag, the 11-7 tally was one vote short of the supermajority needed to allocate $6.9 million in county funds for the upfront costs of updating election machinery.

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Electoral Board Meeting Information

The Electoral Board consisting of the Mayor, the longest serving Alderman, and the City Clerk will meet if there are any objections filed before the deadline stated above. For more information regarding the Electoral Board meetings please visit the Electoral Board page .

Illinois law and judicial precedent govern the nomination process for candidates for local office and the process for making objections to nominating papers. Neither the City Clerk or City Clerks Staff takes responsibility or liability for the candidates action or lack of action. Any information provided by City staff is not legal advice and is for reference purposes only. In accepting filings, the Clerk does not express any opinion as to the legal sufficiency or validity of any document. City staff may not provide candidates, objectors, or members of the public with any advice as to the legal sufficiency or validity of a candidates nominating papers or of any objections made to those nominating papers. Should the candidate have any questions regarding the elections and the nomination process, reference may be made to the Illinois Election Code , the Illinois State Board of Elections, or an attorney. Candidates and objectors are responsible for obtaining their own legal advice, if they choose to do so, throughout all stages of the nomination process.

Editorial: The Big Lie Road Show Continues With A New Stop In Chicagos Suburbs

Opinion contenteditorials, columns and guest commentariesis created independent of news reporting and is exclusive to subscribers.

The Big Lie has made its way to DuPage County.

An organization called Breakthrough Ideas claims voter fraud tainted the results of the November 2020 election in suburban DuPage County, a onetime Republican bastion that has increasingly leaned Democratic in recent years. Leading the groups effort is former GOP state Rep. Jeanne Ives, who lost to Bruce Rauner in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary. She called her organizations findings evidence of outright negligence in assuring we have fair elections in DuPage County.

Those findings? Breakthrough Ideas cross-checked voter records with the U.S. Postal Services change of address database and said it discovered 1,343 people who had notified the Postal Service of a change of address before Election Day, ended up voted from their old address.

Sounds damning, but thats hardly the case.

Change of address forms help keep your mail headed to the right place, but theyre poor indicators of where you live for voting purposes. There are a host of reasons for having mail forwarded that have nothing to do with moving permanently to a new residence: students who study out of state, someone whos caring for sick relatives at a different location, employees whove left on a temporary work assignment or people visiting their vacation homes.

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Lynn Laplante To Run Again For Top Seat On Dupage County Board

• Lynn LaPlante

The first time Lynn LaPlante ran to lead the DuPage County Board, the Glen Ellyn Democrat faced no primary opponent and came within 7,314 votes of upsetting longtime Republican incumbent Dan Cronin.

LaPlante won a board seat two years later, helping Democrats cement their majority in a one-time Republican stronghold. But her 2018 campaign for the county’s top seat left LaPlante with unfinished business.

“I want to go back and finish what I started,” LaPlante said.

The first-term board member has decided to run again for the chairmanship, and this time around, LaPlante won’t have a clear path to the general election. LaPlante is gearing up for a primary race against Liz Chaplin, the longest-serving Democrat on the county board.

LaPlante, a violist with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, said she was spurred to run in part because of “a real deficit of leadership on the board and in our party.”

“This opportunity was here in 2018 when I ran for this position the first time because no one else was stepping up to do that,” LaPlante said. “So that does speak volumes to me. The opportunity for leadership was there. I took it then, and I’m doing it again now.”

When asked to respond to LaPlante’s campaign announcement, Chaplin pointed to her credentials. The Downers Grove Democrat was first elected in 2012. She currently chairs the board’s finance committee.