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Evanston alder race loser sues Northwestern

Cheryl Wollin has been serving as an Evanston, Ill., alder since being elected to the office in April. Her victory remains disputed, however, as Judy Fiske, who lost by a narrow margin, has a lawsuit pending with the city of Evanston and Northwestern University.

Richard Means, Fiske's attorney, contends the university, who he says favored Wollin, provided incentive for its students to register to vote in the city in order to manipulate the election.

NU Vice President for University Relations Alan Cubbage dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous.

"There's absolutely no merit to this lawsuit," Cubbage said. "[Fiske] just makes these outrageous allegations and hopes that she can find some evidence, some documents of some kind, I guess."

Documents exist, Means asserted, which prove the university awarded "housing points" to students who registered to vote in Evanston and for attending political meetings within the city limits.

NU students can redeem housing points for benefits like a higher priority in the university's residence-hall-selection lottery.

"Northwestern was stealing votes by bribing the students who wouldn't have otherwise been voting in the local election to actually vote in the local election," Means said. "If you pay somebody to register to vote, that's a felony."

Means alleged the university held an election-night party complete with free food, drinks and live bands to students who provided proof they had voted.

"What happened was there was a pizza party that was intended to encourage students to vote; it was not intended to reward them for voting for any one candidate, and only two students showed up," Cubbage said. "As you may know, at your university, too, we are required to encourage students to register to vote."

Even without endorsing any candidate — which, incidentally, Means said he believes the university did — Means said all cases of bribing rather than encouraging a citizen to register to vote are illegal.

"People have gone to jail for simply paying somebody," he said. "In 1972, we have an example of somebody who was convicted of a federal felony for paying some skid-row bums 50 cents each to register to vote."

University of Wisconsin political science professor Virginia Sapiro said tension between large universities and local communities are common regarding issues of voter eligibility, particularly when the community considers the student body part of a different voting bloc.

"A lot of people think that students are not legitimate members of a local community," Sapiro said, but added, "Students are citizens [too] so they are capable and legally can register anywhere they want to vote."

Concerning allegations of NU actively pushing for students to register to vote in the city of Evanston, Sapiro said: "It's really not the university's business where someone declares residency. … That's a private choice."

Means said if the university's defense is that these allegations never happened, it should be more forthcoming and transparent.

"We are of course convinced that my clients are not putting thousands of dollars into this case in order to keep me employed," Means said. "They're doing it because they think Northwestern has done something that's pretty outrageous and we think the evidence is going to prove that."

Means said Wednesday was originally the deadline for the university to file a motion to dismiss in federal court but, instead, it asked for a 10-day extension.