PALATINE – Palatine Township GOP Chairman Aaron Del Mar (pictured with Gov Rauner) responded to Illinois Review's request for comment with the following statement, which he specifically offered only if it would be published unedited and in its entirety.
Del Mar's response to the allegations made by fellow Palatine Township Republicans in "Rigged" 2016 elections into "rigged" endorsements, IL GOP Faithful Complain"
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the egregious and categorically false claims stated by Ives for Illinois paid staffer Vicki Wilson. The Palatine Township Endorsement session was held last night, and all candidates were given the opportunity to present including Representative Ives. After the all the candidates finished their speeches, all the votes were submitted and tallied and reported. The tabulation was done directly by our board consisting of no less than 9 or our 12 board members. The votes were based on this weighted scale; The twelve board members were given 5 votes each, precinct captains were given 3 votes each and general members were given 1 vote each. This was done for the following reason, it is my belief that our 12-member board deserves move weighted vote due to the fact that they do 98% of all the volunteering work for the organization thru our events, parades, fundraising, monthly meetings and media and are due more input for endorsing than a person who is simply a member and does nothing but show up at the endorsement session. Same reasoning goes behind why precinct captains have a 3 vote, etc. I will also point out that an audit of our board showed that 66% of our board was for Gov. Rauner and 33% was for Rep. Ives, so taking out general membership, would still have garnered Gov. Rauner an endorsement.
It’s also important to point out that Mrs. Zold, Mrs. Tragas, and Mr. Cramer who are quoted in your article just became members of PTRO the night of the election, presumably to cast votes for Mrs. Ives and did not have any previous PTRO membership or participation, furthermore, Mr. Cramer is actually a resident of Schaumburg Township and came to the Palatine Endorsement session in an attempt to alter the results in favor of Rep. Ives.
Finally, I think it is critical to report that State Representative Tom Morrison who is with the Jeanne Ives campaign and one of her most stringent supporters, is also PTRO member and contributor and he personally audited the votes and confirmed the tally today.
We stand by our endorsement session and its results.
We support Rep. Ives strong commitment to conservative values, and we recognize her strong leadership and outstanding understanding of policy and we truly wish her the best of luck in all her pursuits. We do not however support the behavior of her paid staff member calling into question the integrity and hard work of our board and of our endorsement session.
The collaborative nature of her supporters to try discredit the result of our endorsement session when they didn’t like the result is not representative of Republican values and we hope that this doesn’t happen to other organizations who choose not to endorse her.
It is the position of the Palatine Township Republican Organization to support all Republicans and we want to make it clear while we fully endorse Governor Rauner and firmly believe he is the only candidate who has the means and messaging to win in November, that if Rep Ives wins the March primary will look past the behavior of her staff and we will fervently support her through November and on. We also hope that after March 20th all Republicans, no matter who they supported in the primary, will put their differences aside and unite to defeat the Democrats in November.
Sincerely,
Aaron Del Mar
Palatine Township Republican Committeeman
