Skillicorn Aims To Recall Gov. J.B. Pritzker

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL — Rep. Allen Skillicorn, R-Crystal Lake, announced he'd begun the process to recall Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Skillicorn claims Pritzker has failed to fix the state's unemployment claims website and has begun an initiative to recall the democratic governor.

According to a news release, call center data obtained by Skillicorn from Illinois Department of Employment Security for the period of March 2 through April 28 shows a massive increase in daily calls to the hotline rising from an average of 6,500 for the first 10 days to almost 370,000 with the number of agents available to answer those calls increasing from a low of 88 to a high of 122.

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While the daily number of claims processed are touted as progress, what remains unseen is the number of call attempts that go unanswered and online access that errors out, according to a news release from Skillicorn.

“The Governor has had ample time to fix this website,” Skillicorn said. “I called him out on it, and nothing has been addressed nor has there been a plan presented to fix the problems. Enough is enough. The incompetence cannot continue.”

An affidavit that is meant to initiate a recall effort must be signed by at least 20 house members and 10 senators. No more than half the signatures from members and senators can be from a single political party in the respective chamber.

Once at least the minimum number of required signatures is obtained, this would need to be filed at the State Board of Elections, according to a news release.

From there, Illinois citizens would have 150 days to circulate a recall petition which would require a minimum of 15 percent of the votes cast for governor in the preceding general election from each of at least 25 counties in order to trigger a recall election.

Based on the totals from the last election, there would need to be at least 636,825 signatures collected.