The Romney and Santorum campaigns reached a deal in January to drop challenges that could have kept both candidates from winning delegates in Illinois, according to a report from the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights.
Last week, BuzzFeed reported that the Romney campaign dropped challenges to Santorum’s signature petitions in several Illinois counties even when he lacked the requisite number of signatures, basically allowing him to appear on the ballot in almost every part of the state. The strange decision, BuzzFeed noted, appeared to have come from Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford, who officially withdrew the challenges. Rutherford offered basically no explanation, telling BuzzFeed, “We decided to be spirited and let it go.”
Now it appears there’s more to the story. Rutherford, who was responsible for collecting signatures for Mitt Romney struggled to get enough signatures for Romney and the Romney campaign had to send paid staffers to collect signatures in Illinois to get Romney on the ballot, according to Politico.
Once the Romney campaign challenged Santorum’s petitions, the Santorum camp came back with its own challenge based on the fact that Rutherford had notarized Romney’s statement of candidacy in Massachusetts instead of Illinois. If the Santorum camp had won the challenge, Romney could have been disqualified from winning any Illinois delegates. The dueling challenges then led to a truce between the two campaigns.
“I filed that challenge and they eventually asked me to withdraw my challenge in exchange for them withdrawing theirs,” Santorum’s Illinois state director Jon Zahm said. According to Politico’s account, Rutherford then went to the Romney campaign and asked them to withdraw the challenges to Santorum’s petitions. From there, both campaigns agreed to withdraw their respective challenges in what Zahm called a traditional Illinois “don’t ask, don’t tell policy.”
The mishap calls into question just how organized the Romney campaign, thought to be a well-oiled machine, really is — something some have begun to question as the primary drags on. According to Politico, the Romney camp was shocked that Rutherford, a statewide officeholder who is rumored to be planning a run for governor, dropped the ball in so many regards.
Andrea Saul, a spokesperson for the Romney campaign, told TPM in a statement:
“Sen. Santorum outright failed to qualify to be on the ballot in four congressional districts in Illinois. However, in other districts where he fell short, it would have been incumbent on us or another campaign to force him off the ballot. We decided against doing that. All of Sen. Santorum’s ballot access problems have been a result of his own organizational failures.”
Correction: This article was based on a Politico report that incorrectly stated that having petitions notarized out of state violated Illinois election law. The article has been updated to correct that error.
Pema Levy
Pema Levy is a News Writer at TPM covering the 2012 election. Before coming to TPM, Pema was an assistant editor at The American Prospect where she wrote about politics and the economy.
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