DECATUR â The courtroom hearings to decide who should be Macon County Sheriff are over.
But the legal battle to determine whether incumbent Democratic Sheriff Tony Brown keeps his job â or must relinquish it to Republican challenger and fellow officer, Lt. Jim Root â is in some ways just beginning.
Both sides were in the Macon County Courts Facility on Thursday for a final scheduled hearing. But they agreed the last phase of the battle, including painstaking arguments over dozens of individual disputed ballots from the contested 2018 sheriffâs race, will be settled by written arguments.
And written arguments, too, will address other specific battles, such as Rootâs claims there may have been some election fraud. And, in an election that had originally gone to Brown by one vote, Root is keen to press the judge to consider two extra votes in particular that were cast for him but later discovered, uncounted, in a ballot tabulating machine
In Charleston athletic director Derrick Zerrusen s first year in the position, it has become clear to never put the cart before the horse when anticipating what the IHSA and state officials will do regarding the return of team sports in Illinois.Â
Part of the problem with the lost and found ballots is their strange history. The election judge who discovered them uncounted in a voting machine in Forsyth had flagged them. They were put in an envelope that ended up on now retired Macon County Clerk Stephen Beanâs desk; but Bean said they turned up there two days after the election when he found them there after returning from lunch.