EDWARDSVILLE - The Appellate Court has ruled against Mayor Hal Patton, effectively removing him from the ballot for the 56th District Senate seat.
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Although Patton has filed a Petition for Leave to Appeal with the Supreme Court, along with a request for a stay of the appellate court order, the Circuit Court will be invalidating any votes that were cast for him during the early voting and voting by mail.
Matt Dietrich, Public Information Officer with the Illinois State Board of Elections, said Patton does have one last hope by filling to appeal to the State Supreme Court.
“That’s dependent on whether the Supreme Court decides that they will accept the case,” Dietrich said. “Then they would have to rule in his favor. There’s no guarantee that the Supreme Court will even hear it.”
With the election coming up on Tuesday, March 20, Dietrich said that things will have to move very quickly in regards to the appeal with the Supreme Court.
“There could be other implications from this ruling,” Dietrich said. “For example, if the Republican party tries to slate him for this seat, there could be a challenge from Democrats who would argue that this ruling means that Hal Patton is ineligible to be slated on the Republican side.”
The Appellate Court ruled to take Patton’s name off the ballot because of Patton signing a petition for the election of a Democrat. The court’s opinion stated when a person violates the election code by signing the nomination petition for more than one party, the initial signature is valid and all subsequent signatures are invalid.
The ruling stated that Patton raised a number of challenges to the hearing officer’s and the circuit court’s findings but none of them were found convincing.
The court stated that:
“We therefore reject Patton’s claim that he is a “qualified primary voter of the Republican Party” in the upcoming March 20, 2018, primary election. We also reject his claims that section 8–8 of the Election Code creates an additional, unconstitutional qualification for candidates to the General Assembly. And finally, we reject Patton’s assertion that, as applied by the circuit court’s order, section 8-8 of the Election Code violates a candidate’s voting rights, rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and rights under section 4 and 5 of Article I of the 1970 Illinois Constitution.”
The matter was brought to the Appellate Court after the Cook County Circuit Court Judge upheld an objection to remove Patton from the ballot in January.
The objection against Patton, a Republican, was filed because of a petition he signed for the election of Democrat State Representative which is a violation of Illinois election laws (8-8 of the Election Code).
“Under Illinois election laws if you are running as a member of a party you can’t sign a nominating petition for a candidate in the other party. If you’re running as a Republican you can’t be active in the Democratic party’s primary,” Dietrich told Riverbender.com in a previous interview.
The 56th District Senate seat that Patton is seeking to fill is that of Bill Haine, who will not be seeking re-election.
