Three candidates who filed for the April 2025 city election in Aurora will not be on the ballot.
An Aurora Electoral Board ruled in favor of objections to two aldermanic candidates Friday, and a third withdrew her motion to dismiss the objection against her.
The board upheld objections to the nominating papers of Jose Torres, who had filed for the 4th Ward aldermanic race, and Saul Fultz III, who had filed for the 7th Ward race.
Adrianna Dallmann withdrew her motion to dismiss the objection against her candidacy for alderman at-large.
The dismissal still leaves contests in each of those races.
For alderman at-large, incumbent Ron Woerman will face Keith Larson. In the 4th Ward, Jonathan Nunez will face Jeffrey Hansford in a race where there is no incumbent, and in the 7th Ward, Ald. Brandon Tolliver, who was appointed to the position, will face Alex Arroyo and Javier Banuelos.
As is often the case in petition objections, the cases involved technicalities.
But the technicality in the objection to Torres in the 4th Ward was particularly confusing, because it involved different interpretations of state election statute.
In the end, the board ruled to sustain the objection, saying Torres did not have enough legitimate signatures. But there was a question about just how many signatures were needed.
Torres submitted 11 pages with 97 signatures. Objector Richard Better objected to 47 of them.
The Kane County Clerk’s Office did a review of the signatures, and agreed that 40 of those signatures were questionable and should be stricken. That left Torres with 57 signatures which were presumed valid.
Torres said that should have been enough, that he only needed 54 signatures, according to figuring he did using state election law.
Attorney Emmanual Llamas, representing Better, said his figuring, also using state law, showed the minimum number of signatures to be 59.
Both used state law. Attorney Ross Secler, who was hired by the city to advise the electoral board, said they were both wrong.
He also used state law to figure out that a filer needed at least 65 signatures.
The confusion was a combination of wording in the statute and the ward redistricting the Aurora City Council did in 2022.
The statute gives a formula to be followed, if there was no election following the redistricting. There was an election in Aurora after the redistricting, in 2023, but not in the 4th Ward.
Secler said because there was no specific election in the 4th Ward in 2023 – other wards and alderman at-large were elected at that election – the formula of a percentage of number of votes had to revert to the 2021 election. That would put that in line with what the aldermen who ran in 2023 had to use.
“That is, I believe, the correct answer,” Secler said.
Torres said the situation was confusing, because at different times, he was given four different numbers of the minimum ballots.
“I just want to be given the opportunity to represent Aurora, because it’s growing, but how am I to be penalized for something that even the electoral board doesn’t know?” Torres said.
City Clerk Jennifer Stallings, one of the members of the electoral board, was persuaded by Torres’ argument. She was the lone vote against upholding the objection. The board ruled 2-1, with Mayor Richard Irvin and Ald. Michael Saville, 6th Ward, voting to uphold the objection.
Stallings said she was showing “deference to the people who signed the petition and deference to candidates getting on the ballot.”
In the 7th Ward objection, the board ultimately ruled that Saul Fultz III did not file enough signatures to get on the ballot.
Secler said the minimum for the 7th Ward was 46 signatures, but Fultz only submitted 30.
Fultz had filed to dismiss the objection against him because objector Tolliver did not property file the objection. He said Tolliver filed the original and one copy, but should have filed a second copy.
He said paperwork he received from the City Clerk’s Office had only one copy of the objection.
But Llamas, representing Tolliver, said when he submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the paperwork, he received a second copy. He also presented an affidavit signed by Tolliver that he did file two copies.
In advising the board, Secler said there is “no reasonable assumption” that there was only one copy.
“We have to assume the clerk’s office did their job,” Secler said.
In the alderman at-large race, Dallmann withdrew her motion to dismiss after a records exam showed she had 473 valid signatures, short of the 542 she needed.
Raised in Aurora and working toward a degree in political science, Dallmann told the board she figured the best way to use her degree “would be to serve my city on the City Council.”
She said she would possibly file as a write-in, and file for office again some day.
“This is not the end of me,” she said.
The Electoral Board will render decisions on three more petition challenges to mayoral candidates John Laesch, Karina Garcia and Jazmine Garcia on Monday morning.
slord@tribpub.com
