Stevenson v. County Officers Electoral Bd.

• Decision Date: 13 March 1978
• Docket Number: No. 78-31,78-31
• Citation: 15 Ill.Dec. 571,373 N.E.2d 1043,58 Ill.App.3d 24
• Parties: , 15 Ill.Dec. 571 Donald R. STEVENSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. The COUNTY OFFICERS ELECTORAL BOARD, Judge Angelo F. Pistilli, Honorable Clara Hartley Woodard and Honorable Edward Petka, Duly constituted members, and H. James Wrath, candidate, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1043

373 N.E.2d 1043

58 Ill.App.3d 24, 15 Ill.Dec. 571

Donald R. STEVENSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. The COUNTY OFFICERS ELECTORAL BOARD, Judge Angelo F Pistilli, Honorable Clara Hartley Woodard and Honorable Edward Petka, Duly constituted members, and H. James Wrath candidate, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 78-31.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District.

March 13, 1978.

Burton S. Odelson, Odelson, Sosin & Rocke, Ltd., Sheldon Gardner, Foss, Schuman & Drake, Chicago, for petitioner-appellant.

Edward F. Petka, State's Atty. of Will County, Perry Rudman, Michael D. Block, Joliet, for respondents-appellees.

STENGEL, Justice:

Plaintiff Donald R. Stevenson filed written objections to the nominating petition of H. James Wrath, a Republican candidate for regional superintendent of schools in Will County. After a hearing pursuant to section 7-13 of the Election Code (Ill.Rev.Stat.1975, ch. 46, par. 7-13), the County Officers Electoral Board ruled in favor of candidate Wrath with a finding that his petition was in substantial compliance with the requirements of the Election Code. Stevenson then petitioned for administrative review in the Circuit Court of Will County. After the court held that the findings of the Electoral Board were supported by the evidence in the record, Stevenson perfected this appeal.

The Illinois Supreme Court has recently said that before a candidate is denied a place on the ballot, the rights of both the candidate and the voter must be weighed in the balance. (Anderson v. Schneider (1977), 67 Ill.2d 165, 8 Ill.Dec. 514, 365 N.E.2d 900.) The court also ruled that the State's interest in protecting the integrity of the ballot must be accomplished by means that do not unnecessarily burden a candidate's interest in the availability of political opportunity. These general principles provide the framework for review of this case.

The first error assigned is Wrath's failure to number consecutively the separate pages of his nominating petition as required by section 7-10 of the Election Code (Ill.Rev.Stat.1975, ch. 46, par. 7-10). Plaintiff claims that the failure to number the pages of Wrath's petition imposed an undue burden upon anyone wishing to challenge any of the signatures. The only authority cited is an unpublished federal district court decision which invalidated an unnumbered nominating petition. Decisions of the lower federal courts are not binding on Illinois state courts (People v. Stansberry (1971), 47 Ill.2d 541, 268 N.E.2d 431) and we note that here plaintiff was able to object to several signatures before the Electoral Board without difficulty in identifying the pages in question. Furthermore, the petition, which is in the record, consists of 48 pages and is not of such a size as would present a serious problem of page identification.

In Williams v. Butler (4th Dist. 1976), 35 Ill.App.3d 532, 341 N.E.2d 394, an error in numbering Williams' 323-page petition was held not to invalidate the petition. The reviewing court stated:

"The statutory requirement * * * that the pages be numbered consecutively cannot be said in any way to relate to preservation of the integrity of the electoral process. Noncompliance with the provision in the failure to insert or number a page is a mere technicality and cannot invalidate a petition." (35 Ill.App.3d at 535, 341 N.E.2d at 397.)

Although the error here is slightly different than occurred in Williams, we nonetheless believe that the failure to number the pages was a technical violation, and that the Electoral Board did not err in ruling that Wrath was entitled to a place on the primary ballot in spite of his nonconformance with the page numbering requirement.

Plaintiff also contends that Wrath's petition stated incorrectly the name of the office he was seeking. Some of the pages of his nominating petition listed the office as "Superintendent of an Educational Service Region" and other pages referred to "Superintendent of an Educational Service Region, Will County, Illinois." These titles were correct at the time of previous elections; however, effective October 1, 1975, the legislature changed the designation of the chief administrative officer of an education service region from ...