Reply #3: You're mixing subjects here. [View All]

There are two completely separate subjects, by two different authors, in that email. The "precinct committeeman" petitions have nothing to do with the congressional race. They are instead the petitions which individuals file to be precinct captains, and thus members of the county central committee. They are mentioned in a reminder from Gayl Ferraro (the county chair?), implying that they have had these petitions for some time now (probably weeks, if not months), but they need to be turned in to the chair so they can all be filed at once. This is more for convenience sake than necessity.

On the other hand, the mention of nominating petitions in the section on Duckworth (by Dave McDermott) is mildly surprising. He gives no indication that they need to be in asap, and in fact it is unlikely that they would get them back in time for the first day of filing, which is December 12. There are only a handful of possibilities here:

1) The original email from Dave to Gayl was some time ago, and she is only just now forwarding it; or

2) Dave misspoke, and it is realistically too late to participate in a petition drive which has already reached its goal; or

3) The Duckworth people do not intend to file on the first day, thereby forfeiting any chance of being listed first on the ballot. The things we've heard about them waiting for a release from the DOD this week in order to run would support this possibility. They actually have until December 19 to file. As I said, filing on the first day is only necessary if you want to have a chance to be first on the ballot.