Voters in Rogers Park almost got to vote in the upcoming election on whether they want the U.S. to go to war against Iraq. Donna Conroy led a group of activists in an attempt to get the following referendum on the ballot in the 49th Ward: “Should the citizens of this ward oppose an invasion of Iraq by the United States?”
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After Thanksgiving she and the other activists began circulating petitions to get the question on the ballot. “We walked the precincts in Rogers Park,” she says. “The reaction? There was tremendous high support. Everyone wanted to sign. Everyone–and I mean people of all different ethnic and economic backgrounds–wanted an opportunity to have a say. The vast majority of people felt this war would create further insecurity and economic decline. A lot of people felt that the administration had gone mad. They felt it was time that we the voters started to take the reins.”
On December 9 Conroy turned in 756 signatures asking that the question be placed on the ballot. “I thought we’d move to the next phase of the campaign,” she says, “which is letting everyone know about the referendum.” Then in late December she got a notice from the election board telling her to appear at a hearing. According to the board’s letter, she hadn’t gathered enough signatures to make the ballot: the requirement was ten percent of the ward’s registered voters–1,900 or so signatures.
Citing a state appellate court ruling in North v. Hinkle, Geoghegan argued that the board had the authority to do only a very basic examination of petitions. “They’re supposed to conduct a ‘four-corner examination,’ meaning a basic examination of the face of the page of nominating papers,” he says. “But they went one step beyond that. They counted the signatures she gathered, then they determined from their own records how many registered voters there are in the ward to see if she had reached 10 percent.”
She promises to do an honest count, resisting any temptation to discard ballots that support war. “If we lose, we lose,” she says. “But this is about people being decision makers. I trust the people. I believe the people are smart. The question is giving them the opportunity to show it.”
