For most people, the word “election” likely brings to mind the presidential race that concluded on Nov. 5. But some are already looking ahead to the next elections facing the western suburbs: consolidated local elections early next year.
In Berwyn, independent candidates who hope to appear on the upcoming ballot may not have the chance to do so, leaving voters without a say on who wins some races.
Twelve independents running for local positions in Berwyn, including mayor, clerk, treasurer and alderman, are facing objections to each of their petitions — over a minor wording issue.
While the candidates are not running as a slate, they’ve been in contact since the objections were filed and found the complaints were nearly identical across the board, said Micah Caldwell, a candidate for alderman in the First Ward.
“It really seems like it’s an intentional act meant to try to throw off many of these independent candidates and leave on the people who are running as part of the Democratic Citizens of Berwyn [DCOB], which is the sort of entrenched political group in Berwyn politics,” Caldwell said.
Challenges to petitions are not unusual; candidates and their supporters often try to knock their opponents off the ballot. This move is unusual because it appears to be a concerted by effort by one party to remove an entire group – an unaffiliated one at that – from running.
Caldwell and the other candidates said they believe that because of a statement from Berwyn Mayor Robert J. Lovero, a member of the DCOB, in which he referred to an unrelated objection to his own petition as one filed “against our team” and referred to the group of independents as “our opponents.”
The issue itself boils down to the wording of the nomination forms that the candidates submitted. Caldwell and others who spoke to Wednesday Journal said they drafted with lawyers based on state regulations. According to a copy of the objection to Caldwell’s petition, the forms specified that the candidates should be nominated for inclusion on the primary ballot on Feb. 25, 2025, “provided that if no primary election is required, the candidate’s name will appear on the ballot” on April 1, 2025, instead.
According to the objectors, this wording is confusing for voters because of a recent change in Berwyn’s electoral system. In March, residents passed a referendum changing the city’s system from a partisan electoral system to a nonpartisan one. As part of that referendum’s passage, Berwyn changed its system so the real election happens on Feb. 25. That means a primary is always required, making the conditional part of the statement unnecessary.
That means that if a candidate in Berwyn wins more than half of the vote in the primary, they are declared the winner overall, and the race never goes to the general election in April. Instead, the general election is reserved for run-off races in cases where no candidate wins outright in February.
Caldwell and other candidates said Berwyn did not perform an education campaign about the change or otherwise inform them of it ahead of their filing. They say the objections are just the latest form of efforts from the DCOB to maintain power on the city council.
“In my experience in Berwyn and watching Berwyn elections and politics, it is very intimidating in Berwyn if you are not part of the current administration. They will use various tactics to discredit other candidates or intimidate other candidates or basically make it so that nobody really wants to step up and run against them,” said Patricia Ostaszewski, an independent candidate for alderman in the Fourth Ward. “This is basically election suppression, right? It’s ballot suppression.”
Now, the candidates are going through a series of hearings to argue the objections to their petitions. At an initial hearing on Nov. 13, Lovero and Fourth Ward Alderman Robert Fejt, both DCOB members on Berwyn’s Municipal Officers Electoral Board, which is overseeing the hearings, recused themselves due to the conflict of interest. At a second hearing on Nov. 18, four objectors withdrew their claims. The remaining eight independent candidates will have their objections argued at a meeting on Dec. 2.
Correction, Nov. 19, 3:30 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misstated the ward where Patricia Ostaszewski is running for alderman. She is running in Berwyn’s Fourth Ward. Wednesday Journal apologizes for the error.