Key Points

  • The Illinois Appellate Court, First District, affirmed the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners' order overruling objections to nonpartisan school board candidates' petition sheets.
  • The court held that the dual-circulation prohibition in section 10-4 of the Election Code refers exclusively to party and independent candidates and does not apply to nonpartisan candidates for the Chicago Board of Education.
  • The court held that section 10-3.1, which applies independent-candidate petition requirements to nonpartisan petitions, does not import the dual-circulation prohibition, in part because a prohibition is not clearly a petition requirement.
  • The court held that McCaskill v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board is not limited to consolidated elections and governs a nonpartisan race held at a general election.

An Illinois appeals court ruled Thursday that candidates for Chicago's nonpartisan school board may stay on the November 2026 ballot, even though some of the people who gathered their nominating signatures had collected signatures for party candidates in the March 2026 primary.

A three-justice panel of the Appellate Court's First District affirmed the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which had overruled objector Jorge Sanchez's challenge to the candidates' petition sheets. Justice Mitchell wrote the opinion, and Justices Navarro and Ocasio concurred. In all but one of the consolidated cases, the parties had stipulated that the candidates would lack enough signatures to qualify for the ballot if the challenged sheets were struck.

The decision holds that the Illinois Election Code's ban on "dual circulation" does not apply to nonpartisan races. That rule bars a circulator from gathering signatures for candidates of more than one party, or for an independent and a party candidate, in the same election. The ruling extends a 2019 First District decision, which reached the same conclusion for an odd-year municipal election, to the even-year general election.

The statute, section 10-4 of the Election Code, provides in part: "[N]o person shall circulate or certify petitions for candidates of more than one political party, or for an independent candidate or candidates in addition to one political party, to be voted upon at the next primary or general election." Sanchez objected to the school board candidates' petitions on several grounds, including that their circulators had earlier worked for partisan primary candidates. The election board rejected that objection, and Cook County Circuit Judge Martha-Victoria Jimenez affirmed.

On appeal, Sanchez argued that the ban reached the school board candidates because it mentions independent candidates, and a separate provision, section 10-3.1, extends independent candidates' "petition requirements" to nonpartisan candidates. He also argued that applying the ban would prevent voter confusion. The candidates responded that the ban exists to curb partisan gamesmanship absent from nonpartisan races. They relied, as the board and the circuit court had, on the 2019 decision, McCaskill v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board.

The panel began with the statute's words. "The dual-circulation prohibition refers repeatedly and exclusively to candidates of political parties and independents," Justice Mitchell wrote. The Election Code makes Chicago Board of Education elections nonpartisan, so party candidates cannot run for the school board.

The court identified two purposes behind the ban. The first is stopping a party from using its circulators to nominate an independent who will siphon votes from a rival, or to raid the other party's primary by nominating a weak opponent. "The risk of political gamesmanship that the dual-circulation prohibition is intended to minimize simply is not present in a nonpartisan election," the opinion said.

The second purpose is avoiding voter confusion. Sanchez argued that a voter who meets one circulator working for both a party candidate and a nonpartisan candidate might conclude that the party endorses the nonpartisan candidate. "That may be true in some cases, but the provision's plain language does not suggest any intent on the part of the legislature to address the specter of partisan endorsement in nonpartisan races," Justice Mitchell wrote.

The confusion the statute targets, the court reasoned, arises from the parties' adversity to one another. "No such tension arises when a circulator acts for a partisan and nonpartisan candidate, as the two can never directly compete," the opinion said.

The court also rejected Sanchez's reading of section 10-3.1. The panel said it was unclear whether a "petition requirement" includes a prohibition at all. "To require something is the opposite of prohibiting it; one rarely describes the criminal prohibition on theft as an affirmative 'requirement' not to steal," Justice Mitchell wrote.

The opinion further noted that the legislature expressly named "nonpartisan and independent candidates" in the Election Code's withdrawal provision, section 10-7. "Given the high price of violating the dual-circulation provision, we are not persuaded that the legislature would be any less precise here than it was when discussing withdrawal," the court wrote.

The panel also weighed the stakes for voters. Illinois courts construe election statutes in favor of ballot access, and the opinion quoted the circuit court's finding that "if this Court grants the relief requested, Chicago voters will not have a choice in six Chicago school board races because only one other candidate will remain."

Finally, the court rejected Sanchez's argument that McCaskill applies only to consolidated elections, which the Election Code schedules in odd-numbered years. In McCaskill, a candidate for alderman in Harvey circulated petitions for a Democratic primary, learned that Harvey held only a nonpartisan primary, and refiled as a nonpartisan. The First District affirmed an electoral board that had overruled a dual-circulation objection to the refiled petitions. "The McCaskill election was a consolidated election, but that did not determine the outcome," Justice Mitchell wrote.

Sanchez argued that the risk of confusion is higher at a general election, where partisan races take place at the same election as the school board contest. "But the dual-circulation prohibition is not a panacea for all forms of voter confusion, and in light of the statute's plain language, this risk of confusion is simply not one the General Assembly sought to avoid," the court wrote.

Michael J. Kasper of the Law Office of John Fogarty, Jr. represented Sanchez. Adam W. Lasker of Lasker Law LLC represented the Board of Election Commissioners.

The appellate court affirmed the board's order without remanding for further proceedings. The judgment leaves in place the board's order overruling Sanchez's objection ahead of the November 2026 general election.