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The LaSalle County GOP dumpster fire continues with pending sanctions over election lawsuit

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* November of 2020

The LaSalle County Republican Central Committee filed a lawsuit last week against Democratic LaSalle County Clerk Lori Bongartz. The lawsuit alleges that Bongartz’s office mishandled vote-by-mail ballots and asked a judge for a temporary restraining order to prevent the election results from being certified.

* January of this year

The LaSalle County Republican Central Committee held a rally Saturday afternoon in Ottawa to re-affirm their followers of their platform. Part of which is continuing to spread the message of election fraud.

* February of this year

Eighty-eight percent of precinct committeemen of the LaSalle County Republican Central Committee voted in favor of censuring U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Tuesday, according to a Wednesday press release from Chairman Larry Smith.

* Earlier this month

Judge Scott Belt scheduled a June 25th hearing at which he’ll determine how much the plaintiff’s side will pay in a court case over the November election results. The judge dismissed LaSalle County Republican Party Chairman Larry Smith’s case this week. Smith had claimed the County Clerk’s Office mishandled mail-in ballots, wrongly making Todd Martin the State’s Attorney’s race winner and Lance Yednock a reelected Illinois House member. Martin and Yednock are Democrats.

Belt wrote that accusing County Clerk Lori Bongartz of committing felonies by darkening ovals on ballots is vexatious, prejudicial, and harassing in the absence of facts to support the claim. It would be defamatory if not for Bongartz being a public official.

He also wrote that Illinois law is clear that when an election’s outcome is challenged in court, all of the candidates must be named as defendants, because the case’s outcome could affect them. Omitting them is fatal to the case, and Smith didn’t name State’s Attorney Martin as a defendant. He tried to with a court filing last week, but that’s too late in Belt’s view.

And the judge found that the claim didn’t spell out a positive and clear assertion that there’s a reasonable likelihood that dismissing mail-in ballots would change the election’s outcome. Smith’s claim alleged that mishandling of mail-in ballots was so bad, the only fair thing to do was to remove all of them from the final count. Election night results posted before the mail-in ballots were counted showed Republican candidates, former State’s Attorney Karen Donnelly and Illinois House 76th District challenger Travis Breeden, winning.

Did the party retain Rudy Giuliani or something?

* Shaw Media yesterday

A judge decided La Salle County Clerk Lori Bongartz was entitled to get back some of her legal fees after an eight-month dispute over mail-in ballots. Bongartz’s lawyer says now that total is $3,570.50.

More tomorrow after the hearing.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 11:54 am

Comments

  1. “Get Tom DeVore on the phone… sure, he wants cash up front, but ‘Merica, and these colors don’t run (waving Trump flag”

    - LaSalle County Republicans, maybe

    Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 12:05 pm

  2. The lawsuit makes sense when your premise is that Democrats win only when they rig the election.

    Comment by anon2 Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 12:05 pm

  3. I really wish these people would try to identify more with Illinois and less with the worst of red state usa.

    Comment by dan l Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 12:28 pm

  4. These guys have gone all in on the point of view that if their guy doesn’t win, the election was rigged. Democracy can stand a little of that, but not the current scale at national, state and local levels.

    Comment by Friendly Bob Adams Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 1:18 pm

  5. === Sadly, with new loose-goosey procedures. . . there WAS election fraud in the last presidential election. Truth, son.===

    * Crazy, in-law uncle enters the chat.

    === that’s a more complex matter to answer, and very little serious effort to do the hard work needed to provide us with an answer.===

    Flights are reasonable this time of year, Arizona, that cabin where they’re doing that phony AZ audit thingy.

    Go, report back what you find.

    Geez, Louise…

    Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 3:46 pm

  6. Just thinking… if we held another election as a do-over, would the results be closer, or would the republicans lose even bigger? Pretty sure the latter, I think a lot of people have had it with all the nonsense.

    Comment by Lincoln Lad Thursday, Jun 24, 21 @ 3:58 pm

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