A challenge to hundreds of signatures on Bernard Epton`s nominating petitions could eliminate him from the Republican mayoral primary and alter that party`s challenge to the Democrats in the April general election.
Epton is prepared to end his comeback effort depending on the outcome of a Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing Tuesday, according to his campaign office.
Of 3,916 signatures filed on Epton`s nominating petitions, fewer than 3,000 remained valid Monday after challenges, said Thomas Leach, a spokesman for the elections board. He needed 3,100 valid signatures to qualify for the primary ballot.
Epton`s removal from the Feb. 24 primary ballot would dash any hopes he might entertain of getting even with Mayor Harold Washington, who defeated him in the April, 1983, general election. Epton, who won 48 percent of the vote as the GOP standard-bearer in 1983 to Washington`s 51 percent, announced his intention to run again last month.
The elections board is expected to rule by the end of this week on the challenge posed by 11th Ward Republican Committeeman William Margalus, Leach said. Margalus was out of town and was unavailable for comment.
Leach said Epton`s petitions were challenged for three reasons: that some who signed may not have been registered voters, that some persons signed names other than their own and that some of those circulating petitions may not have been registered voters.
”Once you knock out (disqualify) a circulator, you knock out the entire page he circulated,” Leach said.
Epton apparently threw out 9,000 signatures on his own because of a printing error, and campaign workers and family members scrambled to fill new petitions before the Dec. 15 filing deadline, said campaign spokesman Owen Pulver, who also is the 5th Ward Republican committeeman.
”We collected 9,000 signatures on petitions, but there was an error in the wording on the forms,” Pulver said. ”The State Board of Elections cleared it but the city board didn`t. So instead of putting them to the test we decided to go out ourselves and get new petitions.”
Epton, he said, ”is taking full responsibility for the final decision to file this many. He felt that if you don`t have enough good signatures you have no business running.”
Often, as a precaution against such challenges, candidates file at least 50 percent more than the number of signatures necessary for nomination. Epton`s signatures numbered fewer than 1,000 more than the necessary minimum. Pulver denied that the inadequate number of signatures indicated that Epton`s comeback attempt was not serious. ”We thought that the ones we had would sustain any challenge,” he said. ”We went into this very seriously.” Once the board rules on the challenge, Leach said, Epton will have 10 days in which to request a judicial review. But at that point he will have to prove that the disputed signatures are valid.
If the board determines that the signatures are invalid, Epton said Monday on WBBM-AM radio, he will not appeal its ruling.
Epton`s apparent failure to gather enough signatures to get on the Republican primary ballot is a mixed blessing for his leading opponent, Northwestern University professor Donald Haider.
Haider, who has the endorsement of the local Republican organization, told reporters Monday that he expected to ”lose attention but gain credibility,” if Epton`s departure leaves him to face two minor candidates in the GOP primary.
”I personally would have enjoyed having an opponent,” Haider told a radio interviewer earlier in the day. But he said it would not be ”the end of the world” if Epton leaves the race.
Haider, whose name is recognized by only 40 percent of Chicago voters according to a Tribune poll taken in December, had hoped to increase that percentage substantially during a spirited primary battle with Epton.
Now, said Haider`s acting campaign manager, Chris Robling, Haider will run in the primary against ”the failed policies of the last eight years,”
rather than against Epton. Robling said Haider will try to attract the media`s attention with a steady stream of news conferences and position papers on city issues.
