Three mayoral candidates are also on Tuesday's ballot for other offices. What Monday's deadline in state law means

When Chicago voters go to the polls Tuesday, three of the 16 people who filed to run for mayor in February will be on their ballots for other jobs. Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (5th District) and Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas are each the certified Democratic nominee for re-election, Block Club Chicago reported. All three also filed mayoral petitions in October.

Why it matters: a state law says a candidate whose name has been presented for two offices that one person couldn't hold at the same time must drop out of all but one, and the Board of Election Commissioners' calendar puts that deadline on Monday, Nov. 2. Whether that law applies to two different elections, months apart, has not been decided by any court.

How this happened

Until a 2024 change in state law, mayoral candidates couldn't file petitions until after the prior November's election, CBS Chicago reported. This cycle, filing ran Oct. 19 to 26, one week before a general election in which these three are running for other offices.

The Board's 2027 pamphlet describes the rule, from Section 10-7 of the Election Code: if the same person is presented as a candidate for two or more incompatible offices, they must withdraw from all but one "within the 5 business days following the last day for petition filing." If they don't, their name "shall not be certified, nor printed on the ballot, for any office." The calendar lists Nov. 2 for that withdrawal and for objections to nominating papers.

The lawsuit

Mayoral candidate William Quinlan sued Giannoulias, Quigley and Pappas in September, asking a court to rule on the question before filing opened. Quigley's campaign called the suit "frivolous," Block Club reported. On Oct. 14, Cook County Circuit Judge Eve Reilly dismissed it as premature, because none of the three had filed for mayor yet, and said eligibility challenges belong first before the Board of Elections, according to Block Club. The court did not decide whether the offices are incompatible. Quinlan said he would appeal, CBS reported. We found no report of an appellate ruling as of Sunday.

Then all three filed. Giannoulias and Quigley were among the first in line on Oct. 19, and Pappas filed in the final hour on Oct. 26, CBS reported. Pappas told Block Club in October that she planned to file but would likely wait for petition challenges to be resolved before formally announcing.

What our records add

Our mayor's race page lists all three among the 16 candidates on the Board's Oct. 30 list. Our counts of filled-in petition lines, which aren't the Board's count of valid signatures:

• Giannoulias: 56,232 lines on 5,915 sheets, incomplete because our copy has 16 fewer readable sheets than the Board's receipt.
• Quigley: 41,587 lines on 2,972 sheets.
• Pappas: not yet counted. She said she filed slightly under 40,000 signatures, the Sun-Times reported.

The minimum for mayor is 12,500 valid signatures. Comptroller Susana Mendoza, also running for mayor, is not on Tuesday's ballot; she announced in July 2025 that she would not seek re-election as comptroller.

What happens next

• Mon., Nov. 2: the Board's deadline for withdrawals from incompatible offices, and the 5 p.m. deadline for objections. If anyone wants the incompatibility question decided, the judge's ruling points to an objection before the Electoral Board as the first stop. We will list any objection on our objections page once the Board publishes it.
• Tue., Nov. 3: the general election, with all three on the ballot.
• Dec. 17: the Board certifies the February ballot.

None of the three campaigns has said publicly that it plans to withdraw from either race, based on the reporting we reviewed.