South Central Reporter

The controversy now surrounding the contested election for Republican State Central Committee in the 15th Congressional District could have been avoided if the state GOP had a more sensible voting system in place instead of a "slush system for insiders," a Marion County party official said during a recent interview.

"If you want to build the party to make it stronger, you have to have more precinct committeemen," Ben Stratemeyer, chairman of the Republican Party in Marion County, said during a South Central Reporter telephone interview. "The precinct committeemen who run and are elected build the party. Right now it appears to be some kind of slush system for insiders to sway votes."

Stratemeyer would like to see a more basic voting system in place.

Robert Winchester

"I think a better system would be that instead of trying to apportion votes for people who don't show up, how about we go back to the time-honored tradition that people who show up vote and then you don't apportion nonvoters or people who don't show up," he said. "Republicans complain about voting systems in Chicago with the Democrats. We really need to upgrade our voting systems in our party."

Marion County is part of the 15th Illinois Congressional District.

Stratemeyer's comments came on the heels of the contested "win" by state Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) over the longtime incumbent Robert Winchester for Republican State Central Committee in the 15th Congressional District and his recent affidavit about that race.

In his scant one-page affidavit, a copy of which was obtained by South Central Reporter, Stratemeyer took issue with the reported tally from Marion County's April 18 vote for the committeeman's seat.

"I have reviewed the results of the vote in Marion County for the State Central Committee election and found them to be in error," Stratemeyer said in his affidavit.

"The Illinois Republican Party has announced a vote of 2,512 votes for Robert Winchester and 551 votes for Chapin Rose. The correct totals are 2,704 votes for Robert Winchester and 357 votes for Chapin Rose."

Rose, an assistant Republican caucus leader, has represented the 51st district since 2013, having previously been a member of the state House for about a decade. The Illinois state Senate's 51st District encompasses all of Dewitt, Piatt, Moultrie, Douglas and Shelby counties, and parts of McLean, Champaign, Vermilion, Edgar and Macon counties.

Winchester has hired an attorney and is challenging the GOP's voting procedures in his Republican State Central Committee re-election bid.

Sources told Prairie State Wire in April that the state GOP had run Rose against the incumbent Winchester to punish Winchester for backing Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) in her strong but unsuccessful March primary bid against Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The controversy is a direct result of the state GOP's flawed election system, Stratemeyer said during his South Central Reporter interview. 

"I think when you get into this particular election, what we have is a very close election where one county - one county -  because they didn't do the system right, really jeopardizes the legitimacy of whoever was seated," Stratemeyer said.

"And that could have been Mr. Winchester. So if something happens and they get a few votes flipped, then Mr. Winchester would be seated and Mr. Chapin Rose would have to consider that some of the counties didn't hold a fair election in their counties."

The situation is especially difficult because it involves the 15th Congressional District, Stratemeyer said. 

"This particular congressional district is all or parts of 33 counties, which is almost a third of the counties," he said.

"So this particular congressional district has the ability to have a lot more variation in the way that the votes are tallied from county to county. And what we see is that the Republican Party really does not have a good way to conduct an in-party election for the state central committee."

Stratemeyer said his better system isn't the only one being talked about. 

"Oh, I think there are several suggestions," he said. "One is instead of proportioning or talking about ghost precincts that don't show up or counting votes for people who don't show up, all the different variations that the county chairmen have interpreted, it should be very simple. The precinct committeemen who show up vote for the state central committee."

That isn't how voting happens in the state Republican Party and the totals issued in the Winchester-Rose race, in which sources say Rose was reported to have received 100 percent of the vote, point to why the state GOP's current voting system is problematic, Stratemeyer said. 

"I find it really hard to believe that in any county that there was a 100 percent vote total for any candidate," he said. "Out of hundreds of thousands of votes, that you have a county that votes 100 percent for one candidate and a  100 percent for another; what that tells me is that it's really not a fair and open system."

The problem is not a new one, Stratemeyer said.

"This problem has existed for many election cycles," he said while pointing out that the 15th Congressional District race "was very important and crucial" because the votes had been so close.

"It really shows and highlights that we don't have a good system in place," Stratemeyer said.

Gov. Rauner's downstate director Randy Pollard and Rose did not immediately respond to South Central Reporter's requests for comment.