I talked to Rod McCulloch a little bit last night and he completely denied forging signatures on petitions, although most of what he said was unprintable.

Anyway, the Daily Herald has an update on yesterday’s story.

Milton Township Assessor Jim Gumm’s name will not appear on April ballots as he officially dropped his re-election bid Wednesday.

The move could be only the beginning of a deeper look at his ditched candidacy.

Milton Township Republican Precinct Committeeman Joe Nesbitt is calling for a criminal investigation of Gumm’s nominating petitions.

Nesbitt believes there are possibly hundreds of forged signatures on Gumm’s petitions. Nesbitt sent a mailing out this week to about 500 township residents asking them to evaluate their signatures as they appear on Gumm’s petitions. The letters include a copy of the petition form bearing their names and a hotline number to log complaints.

The hotline received more than 100 calls the past two days, said township Trustee Jim Flickinger, who has monitored it.

Almost all the signatures in question were gathered by consultant Rod McCulloch.[…]

McCulloch stands by his work and said Gumm should not point the finger at him.

Gumm was not all that popular with the powers that be to begin with and McCulloch was called in at the last minute to help with the petition drive. McCulloch has made a lot of enemies over the years, so many people are willing to believe just about anything about him.

We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out, but if he did it, the DuPage County State’s Attorney, who wants to run for governor, will probably come down hard to set an example.

Try to keep your comments reasonable, please. Innocent unless proven guilty and all that.