Alvin Parks is banned from being on the East St. Louis ballot. He’s running anyway.
Even after repeated unsuccessful attempts to reach a settlement with the Illinois State Board of Elections, Alvin Parks has entered the race for an East St. Louis office as a write-in candidate.
Officials with the East St. Louis Board of Elections confirmed Friday that Parks, who currently serves as East St. Louis Township Supervisor and previously as the city’s mayor, would be running as a write-in candidate for East St. Louis District 24 Precinct Committeeman against two other candidates, incumbent LaKeisha Adams and Debra Hamilton-Tidwell.
Last week, Parks’ most recent attempt to settle a bill for $167,000 in campaign finance violation fines he owes to the Illinois Board of Elections was rejected in a 6-2 decision.
That decision came with an additional order from the board ruling that Parks would need to pay the full $167,000 before he could appear on an election ballot in the state of Illinois.
Illinois Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich said Parks is still free to run as a write-in candidate. The Board of Elections can only enforce keeping a candidate’s name off the ballot, Dietrich said.
If Parks wins, there are no rules restricting him from serving as a precinct committeeman. He did not return a request for comment from the Belleville News-Democrat.
Dietrich said since precinct committeeman offices are elected from primary results, Parks won’t run into any problems where he might have if he needed to appear in the November election.
$176,000 in Campaign Finance Fines
Parks’ ban from the ballot stems from repeated failures over almost a decade to file campaign contribution reports, fines from which stacked up to a state record of $176,000. His last settlement offer was $88,005.50, which the board denied.
State law requires political committees or politicians to file reports every time a contribution of more than $1,000 is made. Parks stopped filing the campaign contribution reports in 2011 and was fined $5,000 each time one was due. He was fined again in August for failure to report, according to state board meeting minutes.
Parks, because of the outstanding fines, cannot be certified for elections, meaning he cannot appear on the ballot even if he files for office. Through a “loophole” he was able to pay fines levied between 2011 and 2018 without filing the actual reports, according to documents obtained from the Board of Elections.
During that time, Parks was re-elected without having filed a financial report.
New election rules imposed in 2017 closed those loopholes. Committees now can levy maximum fines when reports were “sufficiently late.” For Parks’ committee, that amounted to roughly $5,000 for two or more reports that were not filed.
‘Flagrant Disregard’ toward Transparency
After the decision, Detrich said Parks had “flagrantly” disregarded the campaign transparency system for which ballot forfeiture is the only punishment the state board can dole out.
“In this case where we had someone who has intentionally disregarded this whole system for years and months at a time,” Dietrich said. “The board believed we needed to make a strong statement that this system is not to be bent and abused.”
Dietrich said the board’s decision to order Parks to pay the full amount of his owed fees was a “significant message” to every candidate in Illinois.
“It’s a very significant decision and it sends a very significant message to candidates of any level statewide,” he said. “Proper record keeping and simply filing what you need to file is not a burdensome process whatsoever. There are thousands of committees in Illinois that routinely file everything on time.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 5:00 AM.