The Illinois Supreme Court
recently issued a new opinion addressing limits on the authority of circuit
courts to hear election contest challenges. Ontiveroz
v. Khokhar.
After the 2021 election, a candidate for the office of village president challenged
the election results after losing the election by two votes. In his petition, the candidate claimed that a disqualified candidate had misled voters about write-in ballots and that
several ballots should not have been counted because they did not comply with the Illinois
Election Code.
The circuit court dismissed the candidate’s case after finding it lacked jurisdiction to hear the challenge because the candidate did not
timely file a verified petition as required by the Election Code for contesting
election results. On appeal, an Illinois Appellate Court reversed the dismissal, finding that the Election Code allows subsequent verification of an election contest petition if the petition is
initially timely filed, and sent the case back to the circuit court to consider additional jurisdictional issues.
The Appellate Court’s ruling was appealed to the Illinois Supreme
Court, which upheld the circuit
court’s dismissal of the case. The Supreme Court held that circuit courts can only
hear election contest cases as permitted by state law, and if a party
violates a statute’s filing timelines or substantive requirements, then a court
has no authority to hear the case. Since the candidate did not comply with the Election Code
provision authorizing judicial review of election contests, the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed
the case.
Post Authored by Tyler Smith, Ancel Glink