Will County Gazette

The Will County Board saw a group of GOP candidates elected evening the partisan divide on the board 11-11.

Will County Board member and Homer Township Supervisor Steve Balich was encouraged by the result and said it should put to bed claims that Democrats were ginning up vote counts – at least locally. 

“On the Will County Board, we ended up picking up seats. We tied 11-11 and that was with the map that they drew,” Balich, won re-election on Nov. 8, told Will County Gazette. “So that tells me that they were going to be fixing the election we wouldn't have had that happen, right? I don't think there was a major problem. There was probably some stuff happening that we wouldn't agree with, but overall I don't think there's a problem.”

The 11-11 balance of power comes after Democrats held a 14-12 majority. 

The board has since lost four seats. In District 1 voters elected Kate Deane-Schlottman (R) with 12,293 votes and Jerry Bene (R): with 5,734 votes. 

In District 2 voters elected Frankie Pretzel (R) with 15,278 votes and Judy Ogalla (R) with 8,746 votes. 

In District 3 Daniel Butler (R) was elected with 9,470 votes and George Macias (R) with 6,285 votes. 

In District 4 Stephen J. Balich (R) was elected with 13,819 votes and James M Richmond (R) with 10,531 votes. 

In District 5 Annette Parker (R) won with 11,838 votes and Philip Juarez (R) with 7,323 votes. 

District 6 remained in Democrat control with wins by Denise Winfrey (D) with 5,500 votes and Janet Diaz (D) with 4,942 votes. 

In District 7 Vince Logan (R) won with 7,970 votes and Glenda Wright-McCullum (R) with 5,714 votes. 

In District 8 Mark V. Revis (R) was elected with 9,419 and Nicky Giannas (R) with 5,329 votes. 

In District 9 Raquel M. Mitchell (R) won with 7,542 votes and Destinee Ortiz (D) with 8,335 votes. 

In District 10 Julie Berkowicz (R) won the election with 9,814 votes and Vasavi Chakka (R) with 5,740 votes. 

In District 11 Larry Alexander Shaver (R) won with 5,057 votes and Antonio Timothee (R) with 3,475 votes. 

The results in Will County have given GOP followers a glimmer of hope amid the bloodbath Republicans faced on Election Night, including the governor’s race being called within 10 minutes of polls closing, a smug Gov. J.B. Pritzker not deigning to name his opponent in his victory speech and the maintenance of supermajorities in the House, Senate and State Supreme Court as well as all statewide offices.

Some have been encouraged to look at the small victories. 

“In other news not mentioned enough, the Republicans did take back the Will County Board,” Safe Suburbs PAC tweeted.

Calls for election reform have recently increased due to a recent inflow of late votes that changed the results of three Will County elections a week after the election. 

On election night, Republican challenger Jim Reilly was ahead of Democratic incumbent Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley, Republican opponent Raj Pillai was ahead of Democratic Associate Judge Jessica Colon-Sayre, and Republican Joliet Attorney Bob Bodach was ahead of Democratic incumbent Treasurer Tim Brophy. After the election on November 8, some questioned the timing of the Democrat vote increase.