CHICAGO — Free and Equal Elections (”FREE”) announced today that it has solid evidence that Democratic Party challenges to Illinois Green Party and Socialist Equality Party ballot access petitions for the November election are utterly frivolous. FREE will hold a joint news conference at 1:00pm, Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at its Chicago office (407 S. Dearborn, Ste. 1170) with representatives from Illinois’ third parties to present the evidence.

The news conference follows tomorrow morning’s Illinois State Board of Elections (ISBE) preliminary meeting — held simultaneously at the ISBE offices in Chicago and Springfield — on the Democrats’ efforts to knock the Green Party’s statewide slate and Socialist Equality Party state senate candidate in the 52nd district off the ballot.

“Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has once again unleashed Democratic attack dog attorney Michael Kasper to protect Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Democrats from competition,” said Christina Tobin, founder of FREE. “We have proof that Blagojevich’s challenges against the Green Party and SEP candidates are frivolous. The Illinois Democrats are using dirty tricks to exclude the signatures of legally registered voters and deny them the opportunity to vote for a candidate of their choice. The election board must throw out these baseless objections before the Governor wastes any more of the taxpayers’ money and violates the rights of Illinois citizens to a free and fair election.”

Third-party candidates and representatives attending the ISBE meeting and news conference tomorrow include Dan Schlorff of the Green Party, Bill Schuerer of the Moderate Party, Andrew Spiegel of the Libertarian Party, Joe Parnarauskis, State Senate Candidate of the Socialist Equality Party and Eunice Conn of the Constitution Party.

The news conference starts at 1:00pm Tuesday July 11, 2006, at 407 South Dearborn Street, Suite 1170 in Chicago.

Free and Equal Elections (“FREE”) is a coalition of Illinois citizens united for fair, consistent ballot access in Illinois for candidates of all political parties.

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