January 2025
Sean Conway and Patrick Bond obtained a landmark unanimous victory in the Illinois Supreme Court with positive ramifications for all Illinois Election Authorities as well as countless other administrative actions taken at State and local levels of Illinois government in Ontiveroz v. Khokhar, 2025 IL 130316.
For the first time, the Illinois Supreme Court has held that election contests brought against election authorities implicate the judicial review of “administrative action” as provided in Article VI, section 9, of the Illinois Constitution. The Court concluded that election contest proceedings are matters subject to the special statutory jurisdiction of Illinois courts, which must strictly proceed according to express law to confer jurisdiction upon the courts.
In reaching its conclusion, the Court accepted the Firm’s arguments made on behalf of the Election Authority that “administrative action” under Article VI, section 9, of the Illinois Constitution is not solely limited to judicial review matters under Administrative Review Law or judicial review of electoral board contests. The Court held for the first time, as advocated by the Firm, that “administrative action” is “a decision or an implementation relating to the government’s executive function or a business’s management.” And “because the constitutional provision limiting review of administrative action protects the separation of powers, it reaches far more than cases brought to review electoral board or administrative agency rulings. It applies to all actions of government officials acting as part of the executive branch in an administrative capacity.”
On this analysis, the Court concluded, as advocated by the Firm, that an election authority’s election administration, counting of ballots and certification of election results is “administrative action” which may only be judicially reviewed under a strict application of express law, as a matter of a court’s special statutory jurisdiction under the Illinois Constitution.
On this ruling the Court reversed the decision of Appellate Court, affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court and found in favor of the County Election Authority concluding that the election contest proceeding brought against the County Election Authority did not strictly proceed according to statutory requirements, which deprived Illinois courts of special statutory jurisdiction over the proceeding.
The Court’s landmark decision protects both the right to maintain legitimate election contest proceedings as well as the fundamental need to bring finality to elections so as to avoid governance under a perpetual cloud of legal wrangling over election results. As significant, under the Court’s definition of “administrative action”, judicial review of administrative action must strictly proceed under express law as to administrative matters well beyond the judicial review of a final administrative decision under Administrative Review Law or an electoral board decision under the Election Code. The Court’s profound ruling in Ontiveroz preserves the separation of powers doctrine foundational in the architecture of the Illinois Constitution.
