Update:
The Raila petition challenge case took an unexpected turn. Raila had not one, but two serious challenges to her petitions from both of her Democratic challengers: incumbent Joe Berrios and newcomer Fritz Kaegi. Berrios had also challenged Kaegi’s petitions, and when that proved unsuccessful, his campaign then dropped their challenge to Raila’s petitions as well.
Sun-Times report, Mark Brown, speculates that a three-way race would have helped Berrios and the move had strategic value.
Raila’s attorney chose to defend Raila’s petition signatures by focusing on character assassination of the objector while Raila herself applied direct pressure to the same person repeatedly asking for the challenge to be dropped. Hal Dardick covered that last minute effort for the Chicago Tribune.
It seems the challenge to Raila’s petitions was not only valid but that her hired petition contractor’s alleged negligence may have contributed to the Election Board’s decision to rule against her citing a “pattern of fraud” in some of the signatures and the process to notarize some of the petitions. ABC Chicago7 covered that ruling and the outcome of the board’s decision.
Andrea Raila has vowed to appeal that decision and a final ruling may be available as early as today.