What do you call it when a congressman handpicks his successor and then fights tooth and nail to keep other viable candidates off the ballot?

Illinois' 4th Congressional District.

When U.S. Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García announced his retirement last November, he did so just hours before the filing deadline for other candidates to get onto the ballot. García's anti-Democratic plan soon became all too clear: His chief of staff, Patty Garcia, would be running. Guess what? Her petitions were prepared and her paperwork was all conveniently lined up.

We called the maneuver sleazy then. The stench got even worse Tuesday when the two serious contenders who wanted to oppose this coronation were ordered off the November ballot.

Patty Garcia now has a clear path to victory after would-be challengers Mayra Macías and Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, were removed. Both Macías and Sigcho-Lopez had been running as independents, their only option under the, ahem, unusual circumstances.

After gathering the onerous number of signatures required to run as independents, opponents challenged many of those signatures. The Illinois State Board of Elections ruled that neither candidate got enough valid John Hancocks. Patty Garcia's only remaining independent challenger is Lyons Mayor Chris Getty; he didn't scare the Democratic establishment as much.

A concerned Sigcho-Lopez met with us last month and shared just how grueling the process was to get onto the ballot as an independent candidate. He also claimed that various high-powered Democrats in the state were behind some of the "challenges."

Petition challenges are sleazy operations, and they tend to be conducted to allow for some deniability, so we heard plenty of those denials after Sigcho-Lopez left our office. That said, we remain convinced that Sigcho-Lopez, whose team had to collect 10,816 signatures, over 15 times more than Garcia, had more than fulfilled the unfair law's intent. To our minds, the likes of Gov. JB Pritzker and even García himself, both men who talk a good game about democracy, should have been helping, not hindering, or even merely staying away.

Sigcho-Lopez told us his team had collected 20,000 signatures, above and beyond the requirement, knowing they'd face challenges. We believe he has done what should have been all he had to do. And we say that as a board that generally has opposed Sigcho-Lopez's proposals. We still think he belongs on the ballot.

Frankly, we felt like we were talking to a man who had believed in the system, only to experience its betrayal. We'd imagine he has been obliged to buoy himself up for public service all over again.

Macías clearly felt the same way. "The spirit of the law is being completely broken in this race," she said before the elections board Tuesday.

Indeed.

The point of petitions is to prevent frivolous candidates from flooding the ballot, but these examples demonstrate how Illinois' ballot-access rules can be used to protect a major-party candidate from serious competition.

This should not keep happening. The fault (mostly) lies not with the State Board of Elections — as Chair Laura Donahue said, the elections board's job is to administer the law, not make it.

The solution is for Springfield's Democratic majority to change election rules to level the signature-gathering playing field for independent candidates. Our system shouldn't deny voters a meaningful choice at the ballot.

Those same Democrats, of course, are quick to vilify their Republican counterparts for abuses of the electoral process. They should also now confront the blatant hypocrisy without their own party.

Will they?

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