How the Illinois Democratic Party Increases Voter Apathy 

I’m a firm believer in learning lessons from our past as a species so we may amend those mistakes going forward. One of these lessons eloquently explained in videos such as “The July Revolution (1820 to 1830)” by Historia Civilis for example, is that Democracy is a vital release valve of pressure in a society. Democracy isn’t simply the most moral sounding system nor just the most empowering system for every individual in a society. It is an invaluable survival tool for states as it gives the population a place to put energy & pressure into that can effect changes in their daily lives. Without these tools, or even worse when the tools were once possessed but are taken away, the death of said state becomes inevitable. Arguably most revolutions in history could have been avoided had the leadership understood this principle, be it the British refusing to give Americans power over their own laws & taxation, the July Revolution in France where the monarchy refused to accept the parliament as anything other than a rubber stamp on his decisions, or the Russian Revolution where the Tsarist regime had fiercely opposed any significant democratic reform for centuries. 

Circling The Wagons 

Unfortunately for all Illinoisans, the party that dominates our state government (& many counties too) seems to have slept through this segment of their history classes. Through a series of ironically undemocratic decisions the Illinois Democratic Party is (through a combination of means both intentional & unintentional) shutting off democratic release valves for public energy. This critique applies to all levels of governance from local to federal, however for sake of brevity I will focus primarily (though not exclusively) on how these decisions impact federal office races in Illinois (i.e. The U.S. House & Senate). Let’s start with a point of critique that I don’t think is intentionally done to increase voter apathy, & that is what I call “Circling the Wagons”. It’s no surprise that incumbents get disproportionately more support from elected democratic officials & township organizations during the general as well as the primary, I actually think this can in some circumstances have a positive effect on voter participation in the general. However, by so disproportionately supporting the incumbent candidates during the primary (i.e. an election in which losing to an opposition party is literally impossible) it actively discourages people from running, and keeps primary vote counts low. Based on my count the numbers breakdown as follows: 

While I can not speak for the other 3 races, I did have the privilege of volunteering in the primary for IL-10, & I can confirm 100% of democratic township organizations & county board officials

getting behind the incumbent was not due to a lack of effort on the challenger’s part, quite the opposite in fact. These gaps reaffirm what everyone already knows, there is a massive disconnect between the public & democratic officials on who they support. 

Money Machine 

It’s not just establishment democrats backing incumbents almost exclusively, the ultra wealthy all backed incumbents whenever possible. According to FEC data last updated in February 2026, the gap in receipts (i.e. money received) are at eye watering levels. Starting with the least offensive, incumbent Mike Quigley bested his challengers by over half a million dollars. In the 6th Congressional district, incumbent Sean Casten had a $1,416,475 lead. In the 13th, incumbent Nikki Budzinski received $2,051,016 more than her challenger, yes not 2 million total, 2 million more than her opponent meaning the actual number she got was well in excess of 2 million dollars…again, for a primary. The worst of all is IL-10, with an obscene $2,249,602 gap between incumbent Brad Schneider & his challenger. These are quantities of money many people in my generation (I’m 28) will never see cumulatively across their entire lives being spent on individual primary races. The negative consequences are being exacerbated by the changes in our media landscape, while the downfall of traditional news companies in favor of independent media is overall a positive thing in my opinion, it does give further advantages to big money candidates as grassroots supported candidates no longer have a single platform or event they can get in on that would expose them to a majority of the voters. The only way they can even have their existence known is if they do a constant marathon of doorknocking & going on various shows\podcasts on a weekly basis. 

BYOB (Banning You On the Ballot) 

In some ways the Illinois Democratic party has brought us to such an embarrassing state of things that those who were defeated by big money & the establishment by often double digits in percentage can consider themselves lucky in a way, for at least they made it on the ballot at all. Many good candidates with genuine public support were kicked off the ballot either directly or indirectly by the Illinois Democratic Establishment, yet curiously those who had no public support & everyone on the republican side regardless of how far right they are were not challenged off the ballot by them whatsoever. Even under the most generous possible understanding of what “the left” even is, it’s clear the Illinois Democratic party considers itself in opposition to the left far more so than the right by these actions. I went to many candidate forums during this cycle, & the moment the crowd I was around responded most positively amongst every one I went to was when Jump Shepherd was on stage and announced he’s a member of the Black Panther Party running for US Senate. The crowd immediately erupted in claps, cheers, and smiles. When he spoke on stage it was clear he genuinely put the time in on mutual aid, education, and just helping the people in any way he can, it was also clear the public liked him. Yet apparently it was a priority to kick someone like him off the ballot in Illinois. Satnaam Mago put in the hard work to get more than enough signatures for ballot access with only grassroots donations & a genuine progressive platform, yet excuses were found to “invalidate” enough of his signatures as to disqualify him from ballot access. When I last spoke

with him on the matter he mentioned if he could redo one thing he would get double the minimum required signatures to be on the ballot. The fact that only certain types of candidates have to worry about getting double the signatures required for the same exact race is blatantly unjust & unequal. 

Juan Beto Ruiz was gaining massive popularity in his race for Lake County Board & seemed poised to beat incumbent Esiah Campos who many constituents criticize for his poor attendance on the board. Despite having more public support, gaining more than enough signatures to be on the ballot, and not having the signatures themselves invalidated, the establishment managed to get him off the ballot. Someone who clearly had more public support & was putting in more work than the incumbent outright, you would think the Democratic Party would see the obvious benefits in someone like that winning in their primary & becoming an elected representative of their party. Sadly the Democratic dominated court system ruled since his name on the ballot & their records of his legal name weren’t 100% aligned he should be kicked off the ballot, which is interesting because I don’t see that standard applied to Bradley Schneider who if I recall correctly has appeared on the ballot before as simply “Brad Schneider” before. Esiah Campos commented after Juan was 1st kicked off the ballot “If you’re running for office, you must be able to follow the straightforward & transparent rules set by the legislature..if you can’t do that, how can you be an effective steward as an elected official?”. Unsurprisingly if you know me, I felt obligated to respond to him posting said article that featured his quote by pointing out getting your name wrong on a paper in the eyes of a bunch of judges is not nearly as damning on your capacity to be a good steward as is attendance & public support. Mr Campos, who has too busy of a schedule to make enough county board meetings without being kicked off of multiple committees due to poor attendance, had plenty of time to react to my fair criticism immediately. Within less than an hour of me commenting my comment was deleted, I was blocked, AND he decided to message me personally, sending me a picture of the ruling kicking Juan off the ballot & saying “This is why he was removed. Had nothing to do with signature requirements. Thank you for your understanding, God bless”. I (reasonably confused as my critique was this is a bunch of legalese nonsense & his signature count not being too low shows it’s not due to a lack of public support he’s being kicked off) responded “That’s the point of my disagreement, he did the work & got the signatures. This is all on a legal technicality.”. Then Juan’s case went through a silly legal back & forth where he (justifiably) got back on the ballot briefly, but then unfortunately less than a week before the election was kicked off the ballot yet again. The Illinois Democratic Party is making it clear they will fight any challenger every step of the way to do everything & anything possible to not even let others be on the ballot at all, how “democratic” of them! 

Killing Democracy (Legally) 

Little did I know when I began my run for Congress in Illinois 10th District as a 3rd party candidate in 2025 how quickly I would encounter hurdles from the establishment myself. To begin, I knew I would need over 16 times the amount of signatures gathered than the Democratic Party candidates to even be on the ballot, not relegated to write-in status. Despite those odds, the second 3rd party petition gathering period started I immediately began putting in

the work necessary, knocking on over 2,000 doors in one week personally. Only after I had gotten this far in my efforts did I get news that all my efforts were for naught, as since I helped my opponent’s primary challenger get on the ballot earlier as a matter of principle, I was legally barred from collecting any other party or independent signatures for the rest of the 2026 election cycle. This is especially unfortunate as it forces someone genuine about electoral reform into some level of hypocrisy if they refuse to help other candidates on the ballot. I believe any candidate willing to run that can get a few hundred signatures for ballot access should be given the opportunity to be on our ballot, period. By putting a 16 times larger signature count, barring anyone from mutual signature gathering between parties whatsoever, AND setting the 3rd party ballot access period for after the main parties signature gathering, it was simply too much to achieve ballot access in one cycle starting with no: money, platform, or name recognition. With no avenues for ballot access remaining this cycle, I recalibrated my campaign as a write-in option. However, yet again by merely participating in a democracy & being very bi-partisan myself I would have my campaign hopes challenged. 

See, Illinois is an especially undemocratic and arguably unconstitutional state. So much so that you can quite literally be legally punished for voting even as a completely valid voter! Turns out, EVERYONE who votes in the primaries is barred from running in any partisan seat in Illinois for the rest of that election cycle. Yes you read that correctly, if you dear reader voted in these primaries just know you have less rights to participate in the electoral process for the rest of this cycle should you ever consider a run yourself. I’m not proud to admit it, but for the first week after hearing that news I had just completely had it with everything associated with our government & electoralism in general. I was absolutely furious, however I had fortunately already built up many connections on my campaign path thus far. Those newly found friends & allies all inspired & pushed me to not give up. In time I have since heeded their advice, now I fully intend to continue my campaign in the Illinois 10th Congressional District as a write-in. Given the long odds of winning, I suspect the Illinois Democratic Party won’t even bother with me. Should they choose to sue our campaign however, I would gladly appreciate the opportunity to challenge a law punishing citizens for voting in court. If that isn’t killing our Democracy “legally” then I don’t know what is.