Confirmation: There are no independent Cook County Judicial candidates

The Illinois State Board of Elections confirmed this morning that its website is back up to date -- and that no independents filed to challenge the many, now confirmed as, uncontested Cook County judicial candidates.

I admit to a certain amount of relief on this.

I'd been sitting on a number of comments claiming that a horde of independent filings were in the offing.

A couple of non-specific examples:

Who cares. Too busy circulating petitions in light of the court decision Jack hasn't discussed that is material to the topic of this blog. Wonder why?

Censorship, Jack? The Independents are coming And when we win, we won't be giving you any scoops.

I think that all of this is wonderful. My slale and I now haV€ until the end of August 2020 to get our pelition signatures to run as independents due to federal jOOge Pallmeyer's ruling that we only need to get 2,500 signatures. With all of Ihe Democrats and Republicans failing us and tanking our economy, plenty of people will be looking to retaliate and vote for some independents. And remember, if you lost in one slot during the primary you can run again in another slot....

I don't know what the purpose of these comments may have been -- perhaps to scare up some money from skittish judicial nominees. Judicial candidates can be among the most nervous people ever put on this Earth, not that I blame them.

But I hadn't seen any evidence that any of this was real. So I didn't run the comments.

Of course, in this Year of Never Ending Pandemic, I'm out and about even less than usual. Still, I was pretty sure.

And it looks like my instincts were right, at least on this occasion.

(Although, before anyone takes the trouble to say so, I am all too aware that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.)