This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

Funk: "General Ignorance or Incompetence" Surrounding Poll Write-In Process

Steve Funk, Libertarian candidate for State Representative of Illinois' 18th District, may have lost the election, but he still has a bone to pick.

As  celebrated  at Evanston's Fire House Grill, Tuesday night, across town, at Pete Miller's, sat all eight members of the opposition, mulling over the loss, upset at the process that had gotten them there.

But Libertarian candidate  wasn't conceding. At least not yet. Funk and supporters discussed, argued and reflected over the difficulties of his 10-month campaign and a system which they said doesn't give independent parties a fighting chance.

Their most recent complaint stems from a series of incidents, which Funk referred to as, "a general ignorance or incompetence surrounding the write-in process at the polls."

Find out what's happening in Evanstonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 "I'm probably not going to win," said Funk. "Fine. But I deserve to know how many votes were written in.  We deserve an accurate count, that's all I ask."

Elizabeth Jones, a 49-year-old Evanston resident and Funk supporter, said that at her polling place, at Evanston's Bahai' National Center of Central Street, election judges told her she could not vote in for a write-in candidate because there was no room on the ballot. Later, when her husband Kevin went back to question the judges, they told him her vote would not have counted because they didn't have a list of write-in candidates.

Find out what's happening in Evanstonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Funk said he had a similar experience while voting.

"I asked for the list of write-in candidates because I wanted to make sure I was on it," Funk said, "and [the election judges] said, 'What? Write in candidate list? We don't know what you're talking about?'"

 Eventually, Funk said, they pulled it out from under a book on a table. He argued that such lists should be readily available and posted for all to see.

This final setback comes only three months after the Cook County Electoral Board ruled that Funk's name would not appear on the ballot because he submitted only 2,231 valid petition signatures, 230 shy of the required amount.

Funk ran his campaign, in part, on election reform, arguing that elections in Illinois were no longer free and equal because establishment parties have set restrictive ballot access requirements to discourage independent party candidates from running for office.

"From the beginning it wasn't about winning at all," Funk said. "It was about educating people that there are different ways of resolving the problems that we have in the State of Illinois. We can't resign ourselves to being a one party district. We have to have a marketplace of ideas or things stagnate and become corrupt. If we don't challenge the people in office, we all lose."

While Funk supporters seemed a bit disheartened over the election results, they remained convinced that the process and message behind Funk's campaign was inherently valuable, regardless of how it ended.

"I'm glad I have more insight as to how the process works," said Daniel Kamerling, a Funk supporter and student at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. "I think you can't go wrong doing something you believe in. Steve is a man of principle and I believe in those principles, so I would do it all again in a heartbeat."

As for Funk, he is not sure whether he will run for office again, but said he will remain politically active. He and his partner, Sarah Wright, are set to open a store together on Nov. 4.

"We've got some time to get back to our normal lives," Funk said, near the end of the evening.

"The new normal," said another woman.

It takes two weeks to count write-in votes so Funk won't likely see his vote total until Nov. 23. 

According to Funk, the last three elections for State Representative of Illinois' 18th District have all gone uncontested.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?