Incumbent Democratic Mayor tells Green Party candidate: Take it to court

Urbana City officials were supposed to hold a lottery for ballot placement in their upcoming election. They did not, and instead placed the incumbent Mayor on the ballot first. Both the Republican candidate, Rex Bradfield, and the Green Party candidate, Durl Kruse, have complained and requested a lottery be held. Incumbent, Mayor Laurel Prussing (Democratic Party) refuses to fix ballot placement error and she says of her opponent: “Let him (Kruse) convince a judge he’s been injured. Let him spend all the money.”

(excerpt from) The News-Gazette.com
Urbana mayoral candidate taking ballot issue to court
By Mike Monson / Thursday March 26, 2009

URBANA – If Republicans or Green Party candidates in Urbana don’t like their ballot position for the April 7 election, they should go to court and try to get it changed, Mayor Laurel Prussing said.

Republican mayoral candidate Rex Bradfield said he’s likely to do just that, perhaps as soon as today.

Urbana City Clerk Phyllis Clark admitted this week that she violated the state election code by not holding a public lottery to determine party ballot position…

…But a lottery won’t happen without a court order, said Prussing, a Democrat seeking re-election to a second term as mayor. She said she rejected a request from Kruse to hold a meeting over the issue…

“These people should go to court. In order to change something, you have to show you’ve been injured … Let him (Kruse) convince a judge he’s been injured. Let him spend all the money…

Meanwhile, [Republican candidate Rex] Bradfield said that he met with Urbana attorney Robert Auler and that he has decided to seek a remedy in court.

“The election code provides protection to the voters of the state and, in this case, the city of Urbana, that they will be involved in a fair election,” Bradfield said. “In this case, the circuit clerk and, more recently, the mayor of Urbana, have attempted to deny the citizens their rightful privilege to a fair election process.”

The suit will be filed in Champaign County Circuit Court, Auler said.

“We’re saying ‘You’ve got an official duty, go ahead and perform it,'” he said.

Kruse said he got a phone call Tuesday from the Urbana city attorney, who he said told him the issue comes down to “utility vs. benefit,” and that the city had decided the cost of reprinting the ballots wasn’t worth holding a lottery.

Studies have shown that appearing first on the ballot can be worth between 2 and 6 percent more votes, Kruse said…

Thanks to Green Party Watch for some of the background for this story.