Top from left, Barry Altshuler, Katey Baldassano, Diana L. Clopton and Leah Collister Lazzari and, bottom from left, Nelda Munoz, Leonard Munson and Matt Sheriff
Football season is behind us, but instant replay can be one of the more agonizing and frustrating moments during games. During that period of time, referees must watch plays in super slow motion to review every millisecond of movement to get the call correct. The announcers always state that the officials need “irrefutable video evidence” to overturn the original ruling.
After review of Tuesday’s unofficial District 220 Board of Education (BOE) election results, we find ourselves in replay mode looking at myriad data points to assess the political science.
This year’s BOE election included two incumbents, Barry Altschuler and Leah Collister-Lazzari, as well as five first time candidates: Katey Baldassano, Leonard Munson, Matt Sheriff (collectively running on the Action PAC slate), Nelda Munoz and Diana Clopton.
Early voting was available from March 20th – April 3rd with election day voting taking place on Tuesday, April 4th. The unofficial Lake County election night results showed a striking disparity between those who chose to vote in person (either through early voting or on election day) compared to those who voted by mail.
The Action PAC candidates and Nelda Munoz all performed far better with those who voted in person while the two incumbents and Diana Clopton performed remarkably better with mail in ballots. The top three vote getters amongst those who voted in person in Lake County were the three Action PAC candidates. The top 3 vote by mail getters, as a percentage of their overall total number of votes, were the two incumbents and Diana Clopton. The data breakdown is seen here:
So what does this mean? Clearly, a considerable effort was made by Clopton, Altshuler and Lazzari to execute on mail in ballots. We also know that both Lake County and Cook County offer the option for voters to permanently vote by mail (since the 2020 general election).
We also know that Governor Pritzker promised to allocate $500,000 and other Democratic Party resources to school board races during this election cycle. We also know that Clopton, Altshuler and Lazzari claimed they were not part of a slate and instead self-identified as “independent” candidates.
Is it just coincidence that Clopton, Altshuler and Lazzari had nearly identical percentages of their vote tally to come from mail in ballots? Is it possible the Democratic Party of Illinois harvested the necessary number of ballots supporting Clopton, Altshuler and Lazzari to overtake the Action PAC candidates despite their claim of independence? Should the mail in ballots themselves be subject to a legal challenge flag?
The answer is we do not know and do not have irrefutable evidence to say otherwise. What we can unequivocally state is that we are an evenly ideologically divided town when it comes to overseeing our schools.
The so called “independent” candidates – and let’s be honest, they are the left leaning candidates – gathered 6,507 (50.35%) votes in Lake County as of election night and the center/right leaning candidates collected 6,415 (49.64%) votes. We don’t see a mandate in those numbers, and it would behoove the new BOE to recognize this chasm and respect the wide range of community perspectives. After all, the next football season is just a few months away.
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