A
hotly contested race for nomination for judge on the Appellate
Court remained in limbo Thursday as Cook County officials tallied
ballots left uncounted because of voting problems in Tuesday's
primary election.
The
tight race emerged between Joy Cunningham and David Erickson,
who was appointed to the seat left vacant when Appellate Court
Judge Allen Hartman died last year. Legal groups found both Cunningham,
a former associate judge, and Erickson, former first assistant
Cook County state's attorney, highly qualified.
Several
bar associations that evaluated judicial candidatessaid voters
educated themselves more during this election than in previous
ones. The Appleseed Fund for Justice Web site received more than
500,000 hits in March, said Malcolm Rich, executive director of
the Chicago Council of Lawyers.
In
most cases, candidates who chose to be evaluated by the legal
groups defeated candidates who chose not to be scrutinized by
their peers.
In
Cook County, legal groups pointed to the Northwest Side's 6th
subcircuit, where public defender Ramon Ocasio seemed poised to
beat two others--including the son of former Cook County Commissioner
Ted Lechowicz, who was not recommended by the Chicago Bar Association
or by the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening.
Judge
Aurelia Pucinski had the most votes counted so far among four
candidates for a countywide Circuit Court spot. The daughter of
the late Roman Pucinski, who had been a congressman and alderman,
was elected to a subcircuit seat in 2004.
In
one of the more interesting races in the southwest suburbs, former
state Sen. Edward Petka defeated Diane Para, an attorney for the
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation,
in the Republican primary for the newly created judicial subcircuit
that includes Will County's Wheatland and Plainfield Townships.
Petka,
a veteran lawmaker and former prosecutor who supports the death
penalty, received a "not recommended" rating from the Illinois
State Bar Association. But he easily outpolled Para, receiving
59 percent of the vote to her 41 percent, according to unofficial
returns.
The
bar association did not rank Para, who also is a Republican trustee
in Wheatland Township, because there were not enough lawyers who
had knowledge of her legal history to rate her, according to a
spokesman. Blind from birth, she had hoped to become the first
blind person to be elected a judge in Illinois. One judge who
was blind had been appointed but not elected, she said.
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