Four Joliet candidates await ballot lottery

Only four candidates in the April 4 Joliet city election will be in lotteries to determine ballot positions.

The lottery for ballot positions are one of a few remaining steps in the process before ballots can be set for the April 4 election for mayor and five council members.

Twenty candidates filed petitions by Monday’s deadline to run in the election.

Whether all those candidates get on the ballot still depends on whether there are any successful challenges to the petitions. The deadline for filing objections is Dec. 27, and hearings would be later.

In the meantime, there will be two lotteries on Dec. 28 to determine who has the top spot on the ballot in District 2 and who has the bottom spot on the ballot in District 4.

Candidates often try to file their petitions first or last to get those positions, which are considered advantageous in the election.

Council Member Pat Mudron and Quinn Adamowski will be in the lottery for top spot on the ballot in District 2, where they are among four candidates who have filed to run for that council position.

Cesar Cardenas and William J. Ferguson will be in the lottery for bottom spot on the ballot in District 4, where they are among five candidates who have filed in that contest.

“I just wanted to go for the last spot,” Cardenas said Monday while waiting to file his petitions.

At the time, it appeared that four candidates were running in District 4, and Cardenas liked the way the numbers were shaping up.

“Four is my favorite number,” he said, expecting to have both the bottom spot on the ballot and the fourth spot as he brought his petitions to the city clerk’s office at 4 p.m.

But Ferguson showed up later, making five candidates and a lottery for the bottom spot.

Joliet sets the time between 4 and 5 p.m. on the last day of filing for candidates to be in lottery for bottom spot on the ballot.

The lottery for top spot is available to all candidates in line when the clerk’s office opened at 8 a.m. on the first day of filing, which was Dec. 12.

All other candidates get on the ballot in order based on when they filed their petitions.

Another factor in the final ballot is Gregory Lee, who filed to run for both mayor and the council seat in District 4. He can’t run for both, and state election law gives Lee five business days after filing to pull out of one of the races.

Right now, Lee has the bottom spot on the ballot in the mayor’s race after filing 22 minutes after Mayor Bob O’Dekirk on Monday. Terry D’Arcy has the top spot in the mayor’s race followed by Tycee Bell.