Naperville City Council candidate Nag Jaiswal will remain on the ballot for the city’s upcoming consolidated general election in April 2025.
The decision came in a 3-0 vote from the Municipal Officers Electoral Board at a hearing on Thursday.
Objectors took issue with “validity and sufficiency” of Jaiswal’s petition signatures
Jaiswal’s candidate petition was challenged by three Naperville residents: Mark Vincent Urda, Dianne A. McGuire, and Nancy Hans Turner. They were represented during the hearing by attorney Jeffrey Jacobson.
The objectors’ main issue with Jaiswal’s petition involved its signatures, some of which they deemed invalid.
The group detailed in its objection that they could not verify certain signatures were from qualified voters in the city of Naperville. Their other listed issues included missing signature information, duplicate signatures, or improper attestation by a circulator.
Jaiswal’s petition included 414 total signatures, 97 more than the required 317-signature threshold for city council candidates. The objectors challenged 102 of his signatures, which meant at least 98 of those would have had to be proven to be invalid to prompt Jaiswal’s removal from the ballot.
Naperville Senior Assistant Attorney Kristen Toberman conducted a record check of Jaiswal’s petition at the Naperville Municipal Center in late November. Of the 102 objected signatures, Toberman sustained 65 of them, overruling 37.
The assistant attorney said during Thursday’s hearing that she checked Jaiswal’s signatures against voter registration records provided by both DuPage and Will counties.
Toberman checked for the existence of the voter, along with consistencies in their signatures. She said no one with expertise in handwriting analysis was involved in the record check.
Objecting attorney’s late challenge to record check
The objectors planned to challenge any findings from Toberman’s check, but any Rule 8 objection to a record check must be filed within 48 hours of its completion.
Toberman completed the record check at 12:15 p.m. on Nov. 20, which meant written objections to the signature verification were due at the same time on Nov. 22. The objecting attorney turned in the formal challenge on Nov. 26 at 4:40 p.m.
City attorney Mike DiSanto said he received phone calls and emails from the objectors on Nov. 26 seeking confirmation the city had received the objecting attorney’s email before the deadline on Nov. 22. DiSanto noted he had not received an email from the objectors at that time.
Jacobson claimed he left voicemails to city clerk Dawn Portner to ensure the objection had been filed on time.
“It looks like when I clicked send, my system didn’t send it,” said Jacobson. “That’s why I called and followed up on it. I couldn’t tell whether I didn’t get a response back that it was rejected because I would have if I typed the email wrong.”
Jaiswal’s attorney Jeffery Meyer said the objecting party’s misstep was not “an innocent mistake.”
“The four-day difference in time between when it was due and when it was filed is to the prejudice of the candidate,” said Meyer. “Had they filed a rule 8 motion with what’s customarily included, affidavits, additional public records, things of that nature… that gives us an opportunity to go out and collect rebuttal affidavits.”
Electoral board sides with Jaiswal
In the end, the Municipal Officers Electoral Board, made up of Mayor Scott Wehrli, Councilman Patrick Kelly, and Portner, voted unanimously in favor of keeping Jaiswal on the ballot.
Jaiswal, who was not in attendance at Thursday’s hearing, called the decision “a big relief.”
“If there were any discrepancies, I think it was challenged,” said Jaiswal on a phone call Thursday. “And I didn’t see that as a negative. All I would say is there are probably a set of people who didn’t like me and tried to keep me off the ballot.”
Urda, one of the objectors, was “disappointed” in the result.
“You’ve got to go by the law,” said Urda. “I think there was a fair and transparent hearing… But the lesson is we needed to get our attorney on board sooner, and we didn’t get that done.”
He said he has not discussed an appeal of the decision with his fellow objectors and legal counsel, but Urda said, “My gut feeling is that no, it’s probably not going to happen.”
Yes to Jaiswal, no to Shabazz
Thursday’s hearing covered the second and final objection to city council candidate petitions for Naperville’s upcoming consolidated general election.
The first came on Nov. 13, as Farid Shabazz was removed from the ballot due to inconsistencies around his listed name on the petition.
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