Fading Fortunes: Greens Mount Write-In Campaigns in Illinois

Eight years after civil rights attorney Rich Whitney of Carbondale shocked the political world by polling an eye-opening 361,336 votes — or more than ten percent of the vote — against Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka, enabling the Green Party of Illinois to become an established statewide political party, the once-formidable Greens in that state are resorting to a seemingly quixotic write-in effort in November.

Attorney Scott Summers, the Green Party candidate for governor, and Sheldon Schafer of Peoria, an astronomy professor at Bradley University and the party’s nominee for secretary of state, recently announced that they will pursue write-in candidacies after failing to survive a challenge to their nominating petitions last month.

Summers, a former elected trustee at McHenry County College, was the Green Party’s nominee for state treasurer in 2010, polling a respectable 115,772 votes, or 3.2 percent, in a race won by Republican Dan Rutherford.

Write-in candidacies for statewide aspirants are no easy task in the Land of Lincoln. Candidates are required to file notarized statements with each of the state’s 102 counties, as well as eight local election boards. Summers and Schafer plan to file as official write-in candidates in roughly twenty-five counties, including the state’s twenty most populous counties, as well as in several smaller counties in downstate Illinois where the Green Party enjoys significant support.

If all goes as expected, eighty-five percent of the Illinois electorate should have an opportunity to cast write-in votes for Summers and Schafer with a reasonable expectation that their votes will be accurately counted.

The Green Party’s statewide slate was removed from the ballot when Democratic operatives successfully challenged enough of the party’s approximately 30,000 signatures to drop the Greens below the required 25,000-valid signature requirement.