Voters in at least a quarter of Chicago’s school board districts will see only one name on their ballot in November’s historic elections as candidates continue to be removed.
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners on Tuesday upheld a challenge to the candidacy of Tameka Walton, who had filed to run for the seat in South Side District 10A, leaving the community with incumbent Che “Rhymefest” Smith as the lone candidate. Earlier this month, the board removed Krista Nichols Alston, the other challenger in that district.
The decisions leave five uncontested races so far: District 4B on the North Side, 8A and 8B on the Southwest Side and 9A and 10A on the South Side. Two districts had only one candidate to start, while the others became uncontested through successful challenges to candidates’ nominating paperwork.
But election commissioners have yet to make final decisions on objections to candidates in four districts, three of which have only two people in the running. If those challenges are successful, up to eight of the 20 school board district races this fall could be uncontested — which would leave much of the city with little actual say over who represents them on the first fully elected school board.
The board on Tuesday also confirmed 10 candidates that faced challenges will appear on November’s ballot, including Victor Henderson and Hilario Dominguez, two of the five people vying for school board president. Now, all five will appear on the ballot.
A challenge to Dominguez’s candidacy was dismissed after an examination of his paperwork found that 4,172 of the 8,592 signatures he gathered were valid, far exceeding the minimum requirement of 2,500, the board found. Challenges against Henderson were withdrawn. Challenges against two other presidential candidates, Jessica Biggs and Sendhil Revuluri, were previously withdrawn. No objections were filed against Jennifer Custer.
The remaining cases should be resolved by mid-August, letting voters know who will be on the final ballot.
Brenda Lee Anderson, who teaches at Northwestern University, was among the candidates able to fend off a challenge. The board dismissed objections to her signatures on Tuesday.
As a newcomer in the school board race, Anderson said it was disheartening to learn that two people contested her paperwork after she spent weeks walking around her district to gather signatures. Anderson described the objections process as unfair and said it’s part of the political process that discourages broader community involvement.
“People will come up to me like, ‘Oh, this is just a part of the Chicago process, you have to challenge people’s petitions,” Anderson said. “And I said, ‘no.’”
She didn’t have money for an attorney to defend her, so she took up the Chicago Teachers Union’s offer to provide free legal support to candidates without attorneys.
“I’m frustrated because this is exhausting,” Anderson said.
But not everyone has been able to fight off challenges. Elections commissioners have removed six candidates from the ballot so far. That includes two incumbents: Angel Velez, who represents District 9A on the Southwest Side and is the board vice president, and Cydney Wallace, who represents District 8B on the South Side.
More than half of the 51 candidates that filed paperwork to run for a seat on the board faced challenges. Each case is treated like a mini-trial with both sides presenting evidence before the board makes a final decision.