Democrats see success in local elections

You’ve probably read about the Republican Party implosion
last week in suburban municipal and township campaigns, particularly in DuPage
County.

It’s important to remember that these consolidated
elections are not always a reliable indication of the future. They’re very low
turnout, and in years like this – when the election was held during a hugely
controversial U.S. president’s first 100 days – they can be influenced by the
outrage of the moment, particularly when one political party was putting its
finger on the scale, as the Democratic Party of Illinois was.

The state party supported 280 local candidates, and it
claims 222 of those candidates won, for a 79% success rate. Former state Rep.
Jeanne Ives, a member of the Illinois Republican Party’s state central
committee, described her party’s losses as a “complete wipeout.”

President Donald Trump’s impact on the contests is
undeniable. But a lot of hard work was put in at the state and local levels.
The DuPage Democrats won all of their contested township races, much of it due
to strong grassroots work and decent candidate recruitment.

But there’s another aspect to this: Vote by mail,
particularly the state’s permanent vote by mail program.

Illinoisans have been able to sign up for permanent vote
by mail status for about four years now. You fill out a simple form and then
your local election authority sends you a ballot before every election.

Former Republican state Rep. Mark Batinick told me before
the election that when the statute took effect, 2025 was “the election I feared
the most.”

His reasoning was simple. This was the first off-year
election for permanent vote by mail after years of compiling participants. As
noted above, these elections have notoriously low turnout. But Democrats have
far more trust in mailed-in ballots than Republicans, so they’re much more
likely to sign up for the permanent VBM program. The most important part of
permanent VBM is that the ballots are a major reminder to voters that it is
time to vote again. They may tune out the news or the ads, but that official
mailer from their county clerk will likely catch their attention. A lot of vote
by mail is just regular voters shifting from one voting method to another, but the
permanent program adds an important dynamic to that.

In close races, that could be the difference between
winning and losing.

“Some Democratic victories will undoubtedly be attributed
to Trump backlash,” Batinick said before the election. But that vote by mail
system, particularly the permanent VBM program, would still play a big role, he
predicted.

And he was right.

For example, on election night, the chief of staff for
Rep. Norma Hernandez, D-Melrose Park, Bobby Hernandez had a slight 14-vote lead
over incumbent Addison Township Supervisor Dennis Reboletti.

The Republican Reboletti had a 212-vote lead among early
voters and a 206-vote lead among voters who cast their ballots on election day
itself.

But by that Friday, the Democrat Hernandez had a 775-vote
lead among mailed-in ballots. His overall 357-vote overall lead is expected to
increase as more mail trickles in.

The reason for the Republican aversion to voting by mail
is that President Trump has long blasted it as a way for Democrats to steal
elections. He and party leaders reversed course before the 2024 election. The
party did make some gains, but, at least in Illinois, they haven’t yet matched
the Democrats’ superiority.

And now Trump has reversed course again, issuing an
executive order that in part commands the U.S. Attorney General to take “all
necessary action” against states which count mailed-in ballots that arrive
after federal election days. The Postal Service being what it is (and service
may very well deteriorate even further going forward), that could
disenfranchise a whole lot of voters.

A federal district court and an appellate court ruled
against a lawsuit originally filed in 2023 by Illinois U.S. Rep. Mike Bost
attempting to stop the count of ballots received after midnight on election
days, even if they’re postmarked by election day itself (identical to the rules
for mailing income tax returns by deadline dates). Bost has since asked the U.S.
Supreme Court to step in.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is among several
Democratic AG’s across the country to join a lawsuit against Trump’s executive
order. Their main argument: “The President has no constitutional authority to
‘make or alter’ laws governing federal elections.”

This article appears in Young offenders in Illinois still serving life sentences.