Republican gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski has filed a lawsuit seeking an emergency injunction to stop Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons from printing ballots on which his name is misspelled as “Tad.”
The lawsuit, filed against Ammons on Feb. 15 in Champaign County Circuit Court, could force the county to halt ballot distribution while new ones are reprinted to reflect Dabrowksi’s full name, spelled correctly—ahead of the March 17 Republican primary.
“The other 101 counties didn’t get it wrong,” Dabrowski, a Wilmette resident, told North Cook News. “[Ammons] did receive the certified names from the state board of election, properly spelled, and obviously it’s something that could have easily been checked and double-checked and triple-checked to make sure they got it right.”
The complaint states that while “‘Ted Dabrowski’ was certified,” Ammons “printed or caused to be printed ‘Tad Dabrowski’ on the official ballot and specimen ballots.” By the time the error was discovered, “approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Republican official ballots, with errors, had been mailed-out” and about 200 early voters had already cast ballots with the misspelling.
“In my case, it matters a lot because our campaign is focused on ‘Ted for Illinois.’ ‘Ted’ becomes the key name. And so when that’s misspelled, that’s very problematic. Hard for me to know whether there would be any malice there, but certainly incompetence,” Dabrowski said.
He said that within an hour of the filing, the Champaign County state’s attorney responded on Ammons’ behalf, outlining the “corrective” steps he was taking or considering.
However, the complaint notes, Ammons “did not commit to reprinting the official ballots and, by inference, was planning to continue to use the knowingly defective official ballots.”
Dabrowski is requesting that the court enjoin the distribution of defective ballots, require reprinting and ensure that all votes cast for “Tad Dabrowski” be counted for him. The complaint warns that continuing to use the defective ballots risks voter confusion, undermines respect for the candidate and violates election law.
“We want the ballots reprinted, properly printed, and we expect that to be done,” he said. “Of course, that’s a requirement by law that the clerks properly correct the error. So we’re counting on that, and we’ll take legal action accordingly. We have taken legal action.”
Ballot image showing GOP gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski’s name incorrectly printed as “Tad” in Champaign County’s March 17 primary.
Besides the error in Champaign County, the name of disqualified candidate Joe Severino was mistakenly included on ballots in Kane, Lake, McHenry, Boone and Ogle counties.
“It’s not as simple as one error,” he said. “We’ve got multiple ballots, three different ballots running around in Illinois, and that breaks all the requirements by the Constitution of uniformity of ballots. So you can imagine that there will be voters who will be disenfranchised and candidates who were disenfranchised, and that’s a big problem given the election integrity problems we have, not just nationwide but in Illinois in particular, and of course the level of corruption we have here in Illinois.”
In a press release, Dabrowski criticized broader election issues in Illinois, attributing them to policies implemented under Gov. J.B.
“Errors, confusion and abuse are the predictable consequences of expanding early voting to six weeks prior to elections and linking vote-by-mail ballot mailings to the date of early voting, which were championed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and ruling Democrats,” Dabrowski said in the press release. “That’s simply too short a time for county clerks to do their work properly and correct errors on time.”
Dabrowski also noted ongoing Department of Justice investigations into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and recent legal actions such as the U.S. Supreme Court case of U.S. Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) challenging the counting of votes received after the election.
“Above all else, I implore Illinoisans not to be discouraged from voting,” Dabrowski said in the press release. “Instead, it should motivate them to come out and vote for me so I can fight for Illinoisans and election integrity.”
The ballot controversy in Champaign County has renewed scrutiny of Ammons, a Democrat and convicted felon who was pardoned by former governor Pat Quinn, reportedly with help from his wife, State Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana).
Ammons also faced significant problems during the 2024 presidential election, which led to voters being turned away.
Former state representative Dan Caulkins told the Chambana Sun that Ammons’ pardon was a process of “Democrat machine corruption.”
“This alarm has been ringing for years. It’s not just today. We’ve been talking about this for years,” Caulkins said during the 2024 election. “They need to get rid of their clerk. They need to vote him out. You need somebody in there who can run the office fairly and make things work.”
“There’s no way for me to know why it happened,” Dabrowski said. “What I can tell you, at a minimum it is incompetence.”
