Who cares if Illinois is broke & voters will be confused if Roland Burris can be tossed from office

[wndycty]

Jeeze! This is nothing but a huge waste of money and will confuse voters, but I guess as long as folks can throw Roland Burris out of office two months early no one really cares. . .

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/06/stunning_develo...

Stunning development: Possiblity of two Illinois Senate elections on Nov. 2
By Lynn Sweet
on June 30, 2010 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A little-noticed federal appellate panel ruling may trigger two elections for an Illinois Senate seat on Nov. 2 -- one to fill a new six-year term and, in a stunning development, another to elect someone to finish the remaining days of Barack Obama's original Senate term.

"There is still time to do it right," said Marty Oberman, the former Chicago alderman who is the lead attorney on the case. He argued that the 17th Amendment was violated by not having an election.

Oberman's lawsuit was not aimed at Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.), but would have the practical effect of slicing a few weeks off of his Senate tenure, which was set to expire when a new senator from Illinois is sworn in on Jan. 3, 2011.

"Election officials are shellshocked" at the possibility of the concurrent -- and potentially costly -- elections, Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman James Allen told me Tuesday.
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Allen told me, "It's nuts to spend $30 million for a special primary for someone to serve 30 days over the holidays. Shoe-horning a special primary into September will be a logistical nightmare that will threaten the November election. There are huge problems with the idea of programming, testing and deploying all of the election equipment for a statewide election in early September and then attempting to get all of the equipment back in the warehouse, repair it, re-program it, re-test it and redeploy it for voting that, by law, starts in early October. The November double-election for the same office creates some minor issues, but nothing compared to the problems and cost of cramming in a special primary in September."
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