Disqualifying candidates

At one time, voter signatures on candidate petitions would not be accepted by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners unless street names were followed by the full words “Street,” “Avenue,” “Boulevard,” “Road,” “Place,” or whatever. “Broadway” was a tricky one. It didn’t have anything following it, so if a voter scribbled something additional, the signature was disallowed.

Directional abbreviations were not considered valid, either. It was felt that “N.”, “S.”, “W.”, and “E.” could mean different things. Voters had to spell out the entire word. 

Some petition forms required voters to list their county of residence. Leaving that blank would disqualify the signature, even though all Chicago voters resided in Cook County.

Names, of course, had to exactly match the way the voter was registered, “Thomas,” for example, could not sign “Tom.” “Jeanette,” could not write “Jean.” And “Charles” could not claim to be “Chip” even though he had been addressed that way his entire life.

If a voter was registered with a full middle name, writing only an initial was not acceptable. And voters had to be registered to vote at the address they entered on the petition. If they had moved, the signature would be disqualified, even if they had re-registered at their new address.

Each page had to be signed by the ONE person who had witnessed all the signatures. And a notary public needed to attest to the validity of that signature. A petition could not be passed around a room on a clipboard or left on a table for people to sign unless the same person accompanied it the entire time.

The pages had to be numbered correctly and consecutively and bound together. They could not be loose. One mistake could invalidate the entire submission.

And other documents were often required to accompany the petition – a statement of candidacy, a statement of economic interest, and an anti-Communist loyalty oath.

Even after the oath was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, it was still required by the Chicago election Board. A candidate could not be denied a place on the ballot for refusing to file it, but would have to sue the city, thus receiving a lot of unwanted publicity over an irrelevant issue.