Wicker Park Booster: Cummings fights to get name on ballot

Article in the Wicker Park Booster, by Anitra Rowe, on August 30, 2006.

Wicker Park Booster: Cummings fights to get name on ballot

By Anitra Rowe

The Wicker Park Booster

August 30, 2006

A local Green Party candidate seeking a spot on the November ballot is meeting tough opposition from incumbent State Rep. Cynthia Soto, a District 4 Democrat.

Green candidate Kathleen J. Cummings was denied ballot access by the Chicago Board of Elections Aug. 9. Soto's office challenged 75 percent of Cummings' petitions.

District 4 includes Wicker Park and Ukrainian Village and generally is bounded by Bloomingdale on the north, Hubbard on the south, Racine on the east and Pulaski on the west.

Walter Esler, Cummings' campaign manager, said Cummings on Aug. 18 appealed the CBOE's decision on the grounds that Soto's camp violated statutes and proper administrative practices in their pursuit to keep Cummings off the ballot. Calls placed by the Booster to Soto's office for comment were not returned.

Esler said the Green Party merely is fighting for a spot on the ballot. Choice is the essence of free elections, he said.

Cummings, a conservationist, conducted a "very disciplined campaign," Esler said, working from computer printouts to target registered voters. Cummings filed her petitions with the Illinois State Board of Elections in Springfield June 26, he said.

On July 3, Soto's office objected to 2,440 of the 3,494 signatures Cummings submitted, Esler said. He said the office claimed Cummings submitted the names of unregistered voters and/or bogus signatures. Esler said the challenged petitions appeared to have been randomly selected.

The Cummings campaign spent four weeks countering the challenged petitions by getting affidavits, "which meant chasing people down," Esler said. Then, when Cummings presented enough signatures to qualify for the ballot at an Aug. 9 hearing before the Chicago Board of Elections, Esler said Soto's office immediately filed 14 objections.

At the hearing, Cummings only had one additional name immediately available to make up the 14-name difference, Esler said, and that wasn't enough for the CBOE.

Esler, a Democratic party precinct captain for many years, said the Democratic Party has used this tactic for 75 years.

"You simply aren't allowed to run," Esler said.

Esler said it would take at least six people working for 10 days to challenge as many ballots as Soto's office did.

"We know how long it takes," Esler said.

Esler said the Green Party couldn't possibly defeat Soto this election cycle, and yet "little Kathy Cummings" is "fighting an army."

"No one else is able to run against her," Esler said of Soto. "The Republicans have given up. I'm doing my best to help independents of every stripe ... have access to the ballot."