Wisnasky-Bettorf v. Pierce

State: Illinois

Court: 5th District Appellate

Docket No: 5-10-0265 Rel

Case Date: 08/19/2010

Preview:NO. 5-10-0265
N O T IC E Decision filed 08/19/10, corrected 09/16/10. The text of this decision

IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

may be changed or corre cted prior to the filing of a Petition for Rehearing or the disposition of the same.

FIFTH DISTRICT ________________________________________________________________________ WHITNEY WISNASKY-BETTORF, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Petitioner-Appellant, ) St. Clair County. ) v. ) No. 10-MR-123 ) PEGGY PIERCE, Objector, ST. CLAIR ) COUNTY ELECTORAL BOARD, BOB ) DELANEY, Chairman, ROBERT HAIDA, ) Member, and CHARLES SUAREZ, Member, ) Honorable ) Andrew J. Gleeson, Respondents-Appellees. ) Judge, presiding. ________________________________________________________________________ JUSTICE WEXSTTEN delivered the opinion of the court: This case requires us to construe section 7-61 of the Illinois Election Code (the Code) (10 ILCS 5/7-61 (West Supp. 2009)). Specifically, we must determine whether an

established political party must file a resolution pursuant to that section in order to fill a vacancy in nomination when no candidate appeared on the primary ballot for that party and no write-in candidate was nominated. The petitioner, Whitney Wisnasky-Bettorf, was nominated by the Republican Party for the office of board of review member following the general primary elections where no Republican Party candidate's name was printed on the ballot and no candidate was nominated as a write-in for that office. An objection was made by Peggy Pierce (the objector) to the timeliness of the petitioner's candidacy. The St. Clair County Electoral Board (the board) sustained that objection and removed the petitioner's name from the ballot for the general election to be held on November 2, 2010, and the St. Clair County circuit court upheld the board's decision. The petitioner moved for and was granted an expedited appeal. On August 1

12, 2010, we entered an order affirming the circuit court in this matter and stated that our opinion would follow. BACKGROUND On February 2, 2010, the three established political parties in Illinois

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