Clark County Electoral Board – Yargus Under Oath (Video) –

Clark Co., IL. (ECWd) –

This video is incredibly interesting to watch. The Clark County, Illinois Electoral Board held petition objection hearings on January 13th to hear the several objections to petitions for Clark County Park District Commissioner.

Attorney Mervin Wolfe, Marshall, IL., called Larry Yargus to the witness chair and he was sworn in. Just prior to the Yargus testimony, Mr. Terry Stepp was asked nearly identical questions without any objections from his attorney, including the question of whether he personally circulated all of his petitions. After Stepp answered in the affirmative, Yargus learned over to his (and Stepp’s) attorney and whispered something to him – setting the stage for what you are about to witness in this video.

Prior to watching, please look at the petitions circulated by Larry Yargus (here), in which he had notarized and subscribed and swore to, under penalty of perjury, that he did in fact circulate the petitions and he did witness each and every signature as it was being signed. We were tipped off that this was not the case, and that a petition was left at a public school for teachers and employees to sign. Now you know why his attorney was so dead set on him not being questioned as to the origination of the pages and whether he personally circulated them – and you can probably guess what Yargus whispered in his attorney’s ear during Stepp’s testimony. It probably went something like: “Don’t let him ask me that question“…

OK – at about the 7:13 mark is when he actually was forced to answer the direct question – but the more interesting part is prior to and after that answer in which he admitted he did not circulate the petition.

The audio is not very loud, but it is worth watching…

Now that you have watched the video, and witnessed the line of questioning, feel free to read this Appellate Court  case from 2012 (here).

In that case is this statement:

While the board cannot raise its own objections apart from those raised by the objector, this court has held that “when in the course of hearing objections to nominating papers, evidence beyond specific objections comes to the electoral board’s attention, it cannot close its eyes and ears if evidence is relevant to the protection of the electoral process.”

As evident from the ruling, this board ignored the law!