Seward Township Clerk dropped out of race to settle dispute over candidate petitions

The Seward Township Clerk withdrew as a candidate from the April 6 Consolidated Election after allegations from her Republican opponents of backdating and inconsistencies on petitions filed by township candidates.

Township Clerk Sharleen Smith confirmed in an interview she dropped out of the race in a deal with the township’s Republican challengers to avoid a legal battle over the candidate filings.

The Republican field, led by Minooka resident Shelia Trost, allege that Smith backdated candidate petitions for township officials and other candidates to make it look like their election documents had been filed before the legally mandated deadline last December.

“The resolution was that I did not run but that everyone else would,” Smith said. “I’ll take the hit for the team and I will not run if all the other people can run.”

Smith’s withdrawal from the race comes as Republican candidates supported by Kendall County Party Chairman Jim Marter are attempting to wrest control of the township on a party ticket. While township candidates have traditionally run as independents, local Republicans held a caucus last year in a bid to challenge township officials who they accuse of systemic mismanagement.

“There’s no transparency,” Trost said of the township.

With Smith out of the running, Trost will run unchallenged for the clerk’s position.

“There’s just been some wrongdoing, we believe, and it’s time for a change,” she said. “Sometimes people get too comfortable and get lazy within their duties and I think that’s what happened.”

Republicans filed objections to their opponents’ candidate petition filings, alleging backdating among other complaints of inaccurate signatures and required fields left blank. Under state law, Smith, in her role as clerk, is responsible for maintaining the township’s records, books and papers, including the petitions filed by candidates for township office.

Yet Seward Township election documents obtained by Record Newspapers through the Freedom of Information Act raise questions about some of the Republican allegations against Smith.

None of the candidate filings provided by Smith to Record Newspapers show the signs of blatant backdating that Republican candidates allege. Yet copies of the same documents possessed by Republicans show Smith to have repeatedly written a filing date of Dec. 22 (a day after the deadline), only to have marked it out in pen and replaced with an earlier date.

How can this be?

Smith said that when Republican candidates requested copies of the candidate filings she stamped them and wrote the day’s date, Dec. 22, before handing them over. Republicans then instructed her to write the original filing date, causing her to mark out the original number. Smith maintains that all the petitions were filed before the deadline.

Trost and Keri-Lyn Krafthefer, a Naperville attorney representing the Seward Republicans, deny Smith was deceived into backdating the filings.

“They shouldn’t be able to direct her what to write on the documents anyway,” Krafthefer said.

Other inconsistencies appear in Seward Township election documents.

For instance, Smith wrote in response to objections that eight candidate filings were received on Dec. 22, a day after the filing deadline and in contradiction of what is on the original filings.

Copies of the petition filings given to Record Newspapers also do not show Smith’s seal and signature, unlike every other election document handled by the township, suggesting that the documents were officially filed at a later date.

Jean Homerding, a nearly 40-year Seward Township official and current supervisor, said the township had been politicized and stressed that Smith had been appointed clerk just two years ago and had never worked with election filings.

“There certainly wasn’t anything intentional,” Homerding said. “It’s just all very unfortunate... Previously in all other elections everybody has run independently, never have run on a party ticket. It’s not been political at all.”

Though Smith attempted to get back into the campaign as a write-in candidate, Krafthefer said that would violate the unofficial agreement between the parties, per an email reviewed by Record Newspapers. Yet that still leaves six other competitive races for supervisor, highway commissioner and trustees in the township between some current officials and Republican challengers.

“I would have to say the majority of the residents of Seward Township are very dissatisfied,” Trost said. “This is the sloppy type record keeping that’s consistent with the rest of how they keep their paperwork. It lacks professionalism.”