We’ve never been shy about stating our belief that the taxpayers benefit from contested elections.

Representative government is best served when aspirants and incumbents alike are forced, in the course of actual campaigns, to have their views, ideas and records challenged. So even though we think Park Ridge Alds. Dan Knight (5th Ward) and Marty Maloney (7th Ward) have done fine jobs in their first terms around The Horseshoe and would have prevailed in contested elections, it’s too bad their respective constituents won’t get a chance to hear them defend their 1st term records and articulate their visions for the next four years in an adversarial forum.

Our belief in contested elections is why the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate story reporting on the challenges to the candidate petitions of Park Ridge Park District Board candidate Cynthia Grau and Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board candidate Kristin Gruss (“Park District trustee challenges petitions of newcomer candidate,” Jan. 6) leaves us with mixed emotions.

If Grau is removed from the Park District ballot, all three incumbents – Jim O’Brien, Mary Wynn Ryan and current Board president Mel Thillens – will be able to coast to new terms of office without breaking a sweat. At least D-64 will still have four candidates vying for three 4-year seats even if Gruss is launched, while appointee Board member Bob Johnson will be running uncontested for the 2-year seat he was given in semi-secret Board action when Terry Cameron resigned.

Meanwhile, six candidates are seeking the four 4-year seats on the Maine Township High School District 207 Board.

Our preference for contested elections, however, does not engender any sympathy for the challenged candidates, or antipathy for their petition challengers. After all, complying with the rules for circulating and filing nominating petitions isn’t that darned hard to do – as evidenced by the fact that almost every candidate seems to get it right, election after election.

The H-A article reports that Grau’s petitions are being challenged because (a) she failed to properly staple her petitions – we’ve heard she used one of those black metal binder clips – and thereby might not have complied with a requirement that petitions be securely fastened; and that (b) her statement of economic interest does not state that she is running for the “Park Ridge Park District” board.

According to the H-A article, the objections to Grau’s petitions were filed by Park Ridge resident Charlene Foss-Eggemann, who explained that “[i]t’s important to protect the integrity of the electoral process, including the details.”

That’s exactly right.

Like it or not, many things in life are decided by the “details” – so much so that it has given rise to the classic aphorism: “The devil is in the details.” And whether it is a sports contest or a legal proceeding, outcomes often are decided by compliance and non-compliance with what some folks demean as “technicalities,” sometimes even at the expense of the more substantive issue.

Just ask any attorney who has blown a statute of limitations by filing his/her case just one day later than the law permits and thereby nukes his/her client’s substantive claims.  Or think back to the game-changing significance of something as seemingly trivial as the “hanging chad” in the 2000 presidential race.

Maybe it’s because Foss-Eggemann is an attorney with an appreciation for rules and technical requirements. Maybe it’s also because she herself has been a candidate for public office – she ran for and won the position of Maine Township Republican Committeeman by an impressive 63%-37% margin last March – and has had to comply with the same technical petition-filing requirements as Ms. Grau.

[SIDEBAR: Foss-Eggemann serves on the Park Ridge Library Board with, and is a social friend of, the editor of this blog, who also has contributed to her campaign fund.]

So when candidates who claim they want to serve their community can’t/won’t even comply with the basic rules for becoming a lawful candidate, we have to wonder just how committed they are to the effort; and how diligent and intellectually rigorous they will be if elected.

Not surprisingly, Grau is “disappointed” that her petitions containing more than 250 signatures were even challenged, according to the H-A article.

“I think kicking me off the ballot is not giving voters a choice…[i]t’s the voters who lose when they don’t have a choice.”

You haven’t been kicked off the ballot yet, Ms. Grau. The hearing on those petition challenges is scheduled for this Friday, January 9, at the Cook County Clerk’s office in Chicago. And the outcome of such hearings is not something that anybody should take for granted, one way or the other.

But if you are kicked off the ballot, it will have been your inattention to the fundamental “details” of the nominating petition process that has deprived the voters of a choice involving your candidacy.  For want of a staple?  For want of a correct name?

Too bad you didn’t care enough about the voters to get those simple details right.

UPDATE (01.10.15)  Because the Park District employee who accepted Grau’s petition (and, therefore, is a key witness) was unable to attend yesterday’s hearing, the matter was rescheduled to next Friday, 01.16.15, at 9:00 a.m.

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