DeKALB | An electoral board hearing held Jan. 4 denied objections filed against three candidates of the upcoming local elections.

The board consisted of DeKalb Mayor Kris Povlsen, senior Alderman Dave Baker and City Clerk Steve Kapitan.

Povlsen said the objections were brought on Dec. 28 and 29 against current 1st Ward Alderman Bertrand Simpson, current 4th Ward Alderman Ron Naylor and potential 7th Ward candidate Monica M. O’Leary.

DeKalb County Clerk John Acardo said candidates had until Dec. 20 to file their petition. After that, a grace period is granted for citizens to look over those petitions and object to any candidate.

“There are many reasons someone could object to a candidate,” Acardo said. “Mainly inaccuracies in filing.”

When a candidate files a petition, there are specific requirements to follow; for example, an individual must reside in the area in which they are filing for petition. Another is that a candidate must file a statement of economic interests. In the case of any objection made, the city organizes an electoral board by state law to hear the objection.

Last year, Illinois changed its state law on January appeals to December, which pushed the objection period into the holidays.

“This is the first election with the new law,” Kapitan said. “It made it difficult to schedule hearings after the notification of objection.”

Kapitan, with the other city clerks in the county, must have official certification of petitions sent to Acardo and the County Clerk’s office by Jan. 7 to be put on the April 5 ballot.

Povlsen said the objections against O’Leary were filed by NIU Student Association President Erik Calmeyer, who is also running for 7th Ward alderman. Calmeyer charged O’Leary with failing to put her position or office on the form.

“In actuality, this was a receipt that she had received from the County Clerk that did not put the position or office,” Povlsen said. “It was not a failure of [O’Leary’s] to fill out the form correctly; she received a receipt back from the County Clerk’s office and they had left that blank, so this was a fault of the clerk and not necessarily the candidate.”

Additional objections were filed against Naylor by a DeKalb resident. These objections stated that Naylor failed to write the name of the city of DeKalb in his statement of candidacy and wrote only the word city, Povlsen said.

“This was overruled because the city of DeKalb was written…three other places and DeKalb County was cited two other places within this document itself,” Povlsen said. “This was overruled because it was more of a minor technical error rather than an egregious error that was trying to commit fraud or misrepresent or trying to confuse the voter.”

An objection was also filed against Simpson stating that Simpson put the office of alderman rather than Alderman of Ward 1 on his petition, Povlsen said.

“Mr. Simpson did have an attorney who cited substantial case law that indicated that there is only one alderman for that ward, that the word alderman is adequate because of the address that was printed on the petition form, because of the signatures that were obtained,” Povlsen said. “So having the words Alderman Ward 1 omitted was not…grounds for disqualifying a candidate.”

Simpson said when he first found out about the objection against him he was concerned.

“Nowhere in the state statute and nowhere on the paperwork itself is there a place that says ‘Put in Ward,'” Simpson said. “It hurt my feelings because I thought the objections were really frivolous at best.”

Simpson said he doesn’t think anything that he, O’Leary or Naylor did would have confused the voter or risen to the level of a fatal flaw in the application.

“In these situations, what we are trying to do is ensure in the best way we can that the voters have their rights to the information they need to make a decision without confusion or fraud,” Simpson said.

Povlsen said had any of the objections been egregious and not supported by case law, those candidates would have been removed from the ballot.

“I was glad to see that all candidates will be on the ballot and that this will provide some selection within all of the wards and the voters have the opportunity to make a decision among the candidates running within a ward and not just one,” Povlsen said.