Education Law Insights

With guest blogger Scott Metcalf

There is confusion and concern about how school districts should handle receiving nominating petitions and objections to petitions for the 2013 school board elections. The Election Code says that school board nominating petitions must be filed between December 17 and 24, 2012. Objections to nominating petitions must be filed within five business days after December 24.

Many school districts intend to be closed at some point during the weeks of December 24 and December 31 (which both fall on Mondays this year). But, the law says certain things and doesn’t say others.

First, while the Election Code requires the office in which petitions are filed to remain open until at least 5:00 p.m. on December 24, the law does not specify how long the offices must be open before 5:00 p.m. In our opinion there is no legal requirement that the office be open for a specific number of hours, only that it be open until 5:00 p.m. Second, nothing requires a school district to open its offices on the five business days after December 24 (i.e., December 26-28, December 31, and January 2). One Illinois Appellate Court has held that the relevant business days for determining when objections are due are the regular business days of the public body that accepts the nominating petitions. The business days of the State Board of Elections would not be relevant for school districts. Thus, a school district could be closed on December 31, but would have to accept objections for one additional day (i.e., the last day for accepting objections would be January 3 instead of January 2). (more…)