Kane County Reporter

DeKalb County Board member Jim Luebke saw his write-in run for DeKalb Township supervisor come up short on Tuesday night.

Luebke staged what some saw as a longshot write-in run after being kicked off the ballot for failing to submit a receipt for his Statement of Economic Interest — a requirement needed to certify ballots.

As a write-in candidate, the longtime Democrat’s name did not appear on the ballot and voters had to correctly spell his name in the write-in spot on the April 6 ballot for any vote to count for him.

Despite failing to fully comply with the Statement of Economic Interest regulations, which, in part, are about transparency, Luebke, who also serves as the chair of the DeKalb County Democrats, made the need for transparency one of the pillars of his campaign.

“I want to restore the integrity to the Office of Township Supervisor through increased transparency and communication,” he wrote on his Northern Star candidate profile. “When there is a lack of transparency, voters lose trust in their elected officials.”

A 25-year resident of the Township, Luebke previously ran for town supervisor on a platform of “more open, effective, and accountable government.”

“As your candidate, I pledge again to work for more open, effective, and accountable government, building on the work done by the current Town Board and former Supervisor,” he said during the final days of his 2021 run. “I will devote myself to ensuring that this most basic unit of grassroots democracy works for all of the people of DeKalb Township."