Jerry Johnson Calls for Swift Board of Elections Action and for Withdrawal of Senator Terry Link as a Candidate

In a rush as usual lately, but I wanted to share a few photos and documents from today's Jerry Johnson press conference. I'll have more up later.

In brief, Johnson walked through the evidence his team has collected that shows that at least five dead people have been noted on Link's petitions, as evidenced by death certificates and, in fact, one dead person even signed twice. On other petitions, signatures appeared in the same order as the phone book, and a number of errors were evidenced in people's addresses that only make sense if someone mistakenly transposed names and addresses while copying them out of the phone book. Johnson also quoted from the testimony of one of Link's circulators, Kenneth Davison, who admitted to forging names, and who also was asked by Pete Couvall, Lake County Democratic Vice-Chairman, to go change the address on Davison's driver's license so that it match the address that Davison used on the petitions (Couvall denied this at the petition challenge hearing).

A copy of the press release that was handed out at the conference can be read here. The Johnson campaign has collected over 30 affidavits from people who claim their signatures were forged. Here is an overview of the evidence, including phone book citations and the rest. The most interesting new information was that the Johnson campaign hired a well-known and respected handwriting analyst who has attested that over 100 of the signatures on the petitions passed by Jerry Knight were signed by the same person. Read her affidavit here.

Johnson is calling on the State Board of Elections to review the evidence and fully and fairly evaluate the legitimacy of Link's candidacy due to the tainted petitions. Johnson has further demanded that Link withdraw as a candidate due to the overwhelming evidence of fraud on his petitions.


UPDATED 12/18/07 10:00 p.m.: I forgot to mention that the hearing before the entire State Board of Elections is scheduled for this Friday at 10:30 a.m. It will be held in the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago (probably the 9th floor), but will also be conducted via closed-circuit TV to Springfield for the convenience of the full Board (this feed is not available to the public). As I understand it, the Board is composed of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. However, all of the Board members are dependent on Senate confirmation to keep their posts when it comes time for reappointment. This implies that it might be a bad idea to annoy state senators...

ALSO- now that Jerry Johnson has made his public statement, look for Lake County Republican Chairman Daniel Venturi and the Lake County Republicans to add their call for Terry Link's withdrawal as a candidate, a State's Attorney investigation, and possibly further demands as well.

FINALLY- if you're disgusted by Link's shenanigans and want to kvetch more about Jay Footlik and Dan Seals, head on over to Unincorporated Middle, where she's talking about Mark Kirk's latest bi-partisan efforts to improve the 10th District while the Dem candidates insult the voters and each other, all the while arguing about who has more ties to the 10th. If that doesn't give you your Kirk/Seals/Footlik fix, you can also view the Pioneer Press article on the Footlik "meshugana" piece that we reported on afew days ago (but hey, Pioneer Press is a weekly, so what do you want, and they ask a whole bunch of people the same question we asked here, which is, did that piece help or hurt Footlik).

OK, ONE MORE THING- if you think the folks up in Waukegan and North Chicago (many of whom have a real bone to pick with Terry Link for the lousy job he's done representing them for the last 10 years) aren't paying attention to this story, guess again. Check out the "Talk O' the Town" board, where they have been discussing the "roundtabling" and press conference like you wouldn't believe. I think Link may be in for a shock if the sentiment shown on that board translates into ticked off people willing to work against Link, in addition to talk.

UPDATED 12/19/07 7:30 a.m.: The Waukegan News-Sun has a article up this morning, but it's essentially a regurgitation of the Johnson press release. Too bad, because I'm dying to hear how Link is going to try to weasel out of this. His previous claim that people were playing pranks on him seems even less plausible than it did a few weeks ago.