richard k. means, the best progressive election lawyer in the state of illinois, explains that the procedure for obtaining a recount is quite clear:

A discovery recount is only available in Illinois to a candidate who is within 95% of the winner.  Even then you get to recount only 25% of the precincts in every election jusridiction in the district for a pidling $10 per precinct.  In order to change the result, you have to go to court and prove that, had certain very specificly described errors not been made, that your candidate would have won.

means is one of the authors of the 2002 handbook on illinois election law published by the illinois institute for continuing legal education and wrote the chapter on recounts in the state.

As many of you may know, John Laesch held a press conference this morning to discuss the unresolved election in IL-14.  At this point Laesch still trails his primary opponent by 355 votes in the general primary, although all the absentee ballots are not counted (in fact, County Clerks must wait until February 19th for their return) and there is still an outstanding question as to whether all the provisional ballots have been counted in all nine counties.

John Laesch has conceded the special primary to his opponent, who will run against Republican nominee Jim Oberweis on March 8 to decide who will fill the remaining ten months of Hastert's term, but he has not conceded the general primary, which is still undecided until all votes are counted.  This morning Laesch held a press conference to answer the many questions the campaign has been bombarded with regarding his intentions.  I attended it.  And since the campaign has made it clear they will make no further statements, I will share my observations and the text of his remarks below.

What happens in Podunk shouldn't stay there.  Or at least if it does, the Democratic Party Establishment, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dogs among us, will have won one more unrecorded battle against those of us who want real change.

What's happening most immediately in the IL-14 corner of Podunk (a term I use here to describe anything not directly inside the DC Beltway) is a primary and a special primary on Tuesday, between the DC insider "pick" for our district, an attorney who is a relative newcomer to both politics and our area, and John Laesch, the nominee against Denny Hastert last time out, and the only progressive in the race.

At this point, I'd call it a significant bellwether for the upcoming Congressional elections that virtually no one outside of IL-14 is paying much attention to in the glare of the presidential race, as well as a bellwether event in the battle for control of the party.  So while I don't expect this diary to get much attention, I want to leave a record of what has happened in this primary.  Bellwethers, however unobserved at the time, sometimes have a way of becoming useful history for those who follow.  

in a race like this one, after the financial disclosure reports are put up, there's still things to watch for.  first, there's the personal funds contributions reports like this one (PDF), this one (PDF), this one (PDF), this one (PDF) and this one (PDF) from bill foster.  these are paired with reports of opposition to personal funds like this one and this one from john laesch along with this one, this one and this one from jotham stein.  these are great fun for people running against a self-funder -- well, when the fec has a working majority.  right now, there's not a thing that the fec can do.  you can blame bush, if you want, for that, too.

then there's the 48 hour notice for contributions in excess of $1,000 or more for the 20 days before an election.  these tell us who's still aggressively raising money -- which is more important, since the millionaire's amendment has been tripped in this election (allowing laesch and stein to raise considerably more than $2300 from each contributor).  foster has raised at least $18,900 in new monies that required 48 hour notices.  laesch has raised at least $5,500 in new monies that required 48 hour notices.  and stein has raised at least $4,100 in new monies that required 48 hour notices.

Just found this late-breaking set of endorsements on the Laesch for Congress website.  I say late-breaking, not just because of the time of day, but because we are a mere four days out from the both the primary and the special primary to replace the retired (i.e. completely gone and no longer my congresscritter - Yay!) Hastert.

I just learned today that the primaries in Illinois this year are special for this reason: unlike other super Tuesday states, Illinois is also conducting our Congressional primaries on this date, making them not just the earliest in the nation, but the earliest Congressional primaries in national history, per Congressional Quarterly.

I bring this up because events are happening at a wicked pace here: on March 8, this district will send a new Congressperson to the House, and we need to make sure it is the only real Progressive in this race.

Ok, so, I just got off the phone with Jim Green, campaign manager for Jotham Stein..  And, no, for those of you wondering, I am not switching loyalties, I am still a Laesch supporter.  But I heard the most incredible rumor, and decided I had to follow up on it.

The rumor, in a nutshell, was this: I heard that someone in the Foster campaign had taken recently to drawing faces and scrawling messages on Stein's first mailer, which depicts Stein arms raised, crying out for change, and faxing them over to the Stein campaign.

I figured maybe some quite young Foster volunteer had amused himself by drawing one or two such caricatures and faxing them over.  I know, as does anyone who has worked on a campaign, that you can't control every single last thing your volunteers do.  So I called Green to follow up, but the facts of the case, as he related them, really surprised me.

the most important news at this point is that early voting has begun.  for those who live in illinois' 14th congressional district, the ballot positions for the special primary election are:

Bill Foster
John Laesch
Jotham Stein

ballot positions for the regular primary election are:

John Laesch
Jotham Stein
Bill Foster
Joe Serra

You know, it's very kind of bored now to keep us all in the loop by providing Roundup diaries.  Of particular interest to me is the race in IL-14, so of course when I came back for a pit stop between trips today and saw that he had posted an IL-14 Roundup #3 diary, I took the time to scan it.

Hmmm.  There seems to be very little going on in the Laesch campaign, to hear bored tell it.  Could have sworn I heard about more endorsements recently than those bored now mentions in his coverage of the Laesch campaign, which amounts to this:

john laesch woke up to good news this morning: state senator mike noland has endorsed him.

and this:

booman tribune has an old interview of john laesch that now comes up on google search. his campaign continues its periodic campaign updates here and here. laesch's former blogger also talks about Podunk,IL vs. the New Chicago Machine, the laesch youtube page covers his simmons appearance (broken into multiple videos and quentin young's endorsement.

and...

no, I guess that's about it - all the news bored could find the space or time to bring us about Laesch...