Edgar Co. – Chris Patrick Mocks Electoral Process – VIDEO

EDGAR CO. (ECWd) –

During the June 12, 2013 Edgar County Board meeting, Chris Patrick was heard mocking the Illinois Election Code and the Electoral Process, the part of the electoral process that is the RIGHT of citizens, who allege a defect, to challenge the petitions of those running for office.

The article published at the time is here and it explains about what the objections were all about:

1. Sandra Neal made Edgar County History and filed the first-ever petition objection based on a candidate not circling “Unincorporated Area” instead of “City” on his Statement of Candidacy. This caused the County Clerk, by law, to call for a meeting of the Edgar County Electoral Board.

2. John and Kirk filed 4 objections based on the fact that they were not fastened.

3. John and Kirk filed 2 more based on a “pattern of fraud” to include signatures that were not genuine.

4. The person that circulated those 2 petitions failed to show for the scheduled hearing – and instead of facing the consequences of another failure to appear, and questioning under oath, he talked those candidates into withdrawing their petitions from consideration, not to mention the fact the Electoral Board failed to order compliance with a valid subpoena.

What hasn’t been dealt with in a court yet, is the fact that the Clark-Edgar Rural Water District violated the Election Code by using public funds to support a candidate.

No need to rewrite everything as we have already covered it in the past, but with Mr. Patrick bringing it up in the way that he did in an attempt at marginalizing the election code and the electoral process we thought the record needed set straight again.

One additional concern that was recently brought to our attention is that the Edgar County Electoral Board is a public body under the County of Edgar. With that being the case, we are looking into the situation as to whether the Board was authorized to hire private counsel or not. At first glance we do not believe they could do that on their own, since the State’s Attorney is their statutory legal advisor.

Not only did they hire private legal counsel for the petition objection hearings, they also hired private legal counsel to defend the Open Meetings Act civil suit filed against the board. Since our State’s Attorney is the prosecutor for the citizens of the county, and insists that this law be followed, we submitted a FOIA request for the paperwork that authorized the Electoral Board to hire a private attorney, not just once, but twice. An update will follow next week when we get the information, or get notified that there is no such documentation. IF there was no authorization for them to hire a private attorney, we fully intend on demanding the public funds spent on that attorney be returned to the citizens of Edgar County, just like we demanded with Craig Smith and his representation of the 911 Board.

Video of Chris Patrick mocking the electoral process – but before you watch it, ask yourself this: Is Chris really concerned about the money, or was he asking just to mock, in his own childish ways, the process of elections? If he was truly concerned about the money why didn’t he ask the same thing about the $64,000 for dog food and care as it relates to Dee Burgin?