Election integrity advocate Davis praises outcome of DuPage County Clerk primary: ‘It’s stunning’
Election integrity advocate Carol Davis, chairman of the Illinois Conservative Union, praised the outcome of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in DuPage County, where incumbent DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek lost her bid for re-election to Paula Deacon Garcia.
Garcia defeated Kaczmarek with 56.2% of the vote (54,761 votes) to Kaczmarek’s 43.8% (42,670 votes), out of 97,431 total votes counted as of the night of March 17, according to totals released by the Clerk’s Office.
Republican Patricia Kladis-Schiappa, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary, will face Garcia in the November general election.
“I think that it's stunning that even the Democrats have realized what a poor job Jean Kaczmarek has done,” Davis told the DuPage Policy Journal. “It's been very obvious to me since elections are something I've been involved in for many, many years.”
Davis, who lives in Carol Stream, said sloppy or biased election oversight undermines democracy. She emphasized the need to protect voter rights and ensure proper oversight in the Clerk’s Office.
“Voting is a civil right that we have,” Davis said. “It's a privilege, and it has to be equal. And if we have someone in that office, whether it's the person who's leading that office, like Kazmarek, or allowing her staff to do things in a totally illegal way without proper oversight, that is a huge problem.”
In 2022, Davis, who served as a judge for 18 election cycles, said Kaczmarek blacklisted her from serving as an election judge following her criticism of the Clerk’s alleged failure to follow election laws and procedures.
“I actually served in DuPage County as an election judge for many years until Jean Kaczmarek blacklisted me because I was teaching the other election judges that I worked with how to actually follow the law,” she said. “So I think this is a really good thing for the people of DuPage County.”
Kaczmarek is under criminal investigation by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office for alleged mismanagement of roughly $229,000 in no-bid contracts and election-related spending.
Her office was censured by the DuPage County Board in 2025 over financial management issues, including delayed vendor payments, a budget shortfall, and a 40% staff salary increase over five years.
Past election controversies under Kaczmarek’s leadership included vote-count discrepancies and ballots cast by deceased individuals.
Davis criticized Kaczmarek’s warnings to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents ahead of the March 17 primary.
“The very fact that she did that rant about ICE as if she had some kind of power to keep civil law enforcement out of the election process, either she didn't consult attorneys or she got some really bad legal advice on that one,” Davis said.
Davis also raised concerns over voter roll errors and potential civil rights violations after a former GOP precinct committeeman said his registration had been affected by an error in the Clerk’s Office.
Davis said she has heard similar stories from other conservatives and remains concerned about potential systemic issues within the Clerk’s Office.
“I talked to someone the other day who's had to re-register in the last three election cycles, even though she has lived in DuPage County forever and been registered to vote,” Davis said. “She is a person on the right side of the political spectrum, so you do wonder sometimes if it's not an intentional subversion of voting rights.”
She advocated for broader legal remedies.
“I think there needs to be a citizen's right of action to actually sue county clerks under some of these circumstances because this is a civil rights violation,” she said. “If we're not all being treated fairly and equally in our elections, that's the basis for a lawsuit.”
Davis also noted outside influence on Kaczmarek’s office, saying the local League of Women Voters has taken on roles in the Clerk’s Office.
“They have a very strong influence in that election office,” Davis said. “So that's another factor that people need to be made aware of. Because Kazmarek is going to be gone, we need to make sure that is addressed.”
Regarding future oversight, Davis said voters are not out of the woods yet, as Kaczmarek will still oversee the Nov. 3 general election.
“I'm seriously going to try to work to make sure there's some kind of oversight because this is a very tenuous situation with someone who knows she's a lame duck,” she said. “Plus, she's got all of this weight of the law coming down on her. She could intentionally cause problems, so we have to all be on alert here. This is a very difficult time for DuPage County, that's for sure.”
She called for citizen-led election monitoring across the state.
“There should be local election integrity teams in every county,” Davis said. “That's what we need: to train them how to watch, what to watch for, and what to send up the red flag for, for sure.”
Davis said rebuilding trust in local election oversight is important.
“We need to bolster people's confidence in elections,” she said. “And with the poor election law that we have in Illinois, that's very difficult to do because they know that Illinois makes it easy to cheat.”