In Alan H. Peres and Piergiorgio Uslenghi v. The Municipal Officers Electoral Board for the Village of Oak Park, et al. (2026), the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed that a public referendum petition substantially complied with the Illinois Election Code, rendering it valid despite an accidental omission of the explicit statutory phrase certifying that the signatures “are genuine.”
The proponents are Caren Van Slyke and Jesse Simon Bauer, who circulated a petition to this village’s residents to put a question before their voters in the upcoming November 3, 2026 ballot: “[s]hould the State of Illinois repeal laws that ban state investment in businesses that boycott the State of Israel?” This petition obtained 3,504 signatures from undisputed registered voters. But then Alan H. Peres and Piergiorgio Uslenghi filed an objection to this petition at the Oak Park Electoral Board to prevent this question from appearing on the ballot by arguing the certification statements on these petition sheets were defective by failing to specify these signatures were “genuine”. The words of the certifying statement is a paraphrase of the standard language, which specifies the person signing is a “qualified elector”, but does note specifically the signatures were not forgeries. The court ruled that this deviation was insubstantial, or that the wording that was included met the intent of the requirement to include this certifying language.
Justice Pucinski delivered the judgement, arguing the statement served the intended purpose of validating the identity of the signers. Denying the rights of the signors on this technicality would have unjustly denied their voting rights. Justice Hyman dissented, arguing the allowance of a substitution of “presence” for “genuineness” changes this legislative mandate, inviting more creative rewordings in the future.
The distance this miswording has gone in the courts almost suggests somebody intentionally inserted this mistake to attempt to disqualify this referendum if it succeeded in finding enough signatures. And the investment in covering court fees by the filers indicates they were overly interested in reversing what so many in their village wanted to vote on. And wasn’t there a bigger problem in the wording of the referendum question itself: why would it be logical to ban investments in the businesses operated in Israel, as opposed to banning investments in its government? Isn’t it directly antisemitic to boycott all Israeli businessmen? Though blocking the businesses of countries with whose leaders American politicians disagree is a standard, as seen in the ongoing blockade of Cuba.
Boycotting countries is typically within the federal jurisdiction. Some city councils or state legislative bills have handled such boycott requests. There has been a unique movement to divest from Israel via local ballots, like the one that passed in Somerville, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. The latter referendum referred to foreign countries engaged in severe violations of human rights, as opposed to Israel specifically. There have not been any statewide referendums to boycott Israel. States have moved in the opposite direction, with 37 states passing binding anti-BDS laws or executive orders that have penalized or banned contracting with businesses that are publicly boycotting Israel.
The movement to boycott Israel is not entirely strange, as during Apartheid in the 1970-80s dozens of U.S. cities, universities and state legislatures voted to divest public funds or pensions from companies doing business in South Africa. On the federal level, the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007, authorized state and local governments to divest from companies operating in Sudan’s power, mineral or oil sectors. And the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) orchestrates economic embargos or business-blocking for countries on the Department of State’s “State Sponsors of Terrorism” blacklist, which includes Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Since the start of the war after the terrorist attack in October 2023, Israel’s economy has been surging (by 130% in the Tel Aviv stock market), despite a drop in its labor force due to the mobilization of reservists and a leveling of tourism and construction (due to fears related to the war). The major economic hit has been the $114 billion in debt Israel’s government has taken on to wage this war. The U.S. has spent around $33 billion on this conflict. Thus, if Americans believe this war can be ended by draining Israel’s military budget, U.S. would logically stop spending money on this war on the U.S. end and would stop giving military aid to Israel. But the U.S. has instigated wars with Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries in the Middle East, so it is not merely aiding Israel but rather is pushing Israel into perpetual conflict. The problem is perpetual warmongering: wars are too profitable for the companies selling the tools of war for them to allow federal blockades. And the U.S. might have to label itself as a terrorist state, if it puts Israel on this list, given their joint operations that have put Israel on international human rights violation lists.
Leave a Reply