YouTube Sensation Barbara Bellar Wanted to Run for Burr Ridge Village President

A former Illinois State Senate candidate who went viral last fall wanted a crack at being Burr Ridge’s village president, but submitted too few voter signatures on the last day of the filing period in December.

Barbara Bellar filed paperwork on Dec. 26 to run for Burr Ridge village president in this month's election, but the Republican who lost to Democrat Bill Cunningham in Illinois’ 18th Senate District race last November was told by village clerk Karen Thomas after the week-long filing period ended that night at 5 p.m. that she was nearly 30 signatures short and therefore not eligible to be a candidate.

Bellar, a physician who became a YouTube sensation during the 2012 campaign for her one-sentence critique of Obamacare that garnered millions of views, would have been the fourth candidate for Burr Ridge village president had she submitted enough signatures. John Bittner, Robert Sodikoff and Mickey Straub are the three certified candidates.

"It just bothers me because I know I would’ve won this whole darn thing," Bellar said on the phone Tuesday.

The number of signatures village president candidates needed to submit during the filing period had to equal or exceed 5 percent of the number of people who voted in the most recent municipal election, according to the 2013 State of Illinois Candidate’s Guide.

Thomas, the clerk, said 990 people cast ballots in the 2011 election, meaning candidates needed to submit at least 50 signatures. Bellar submitted 21, Thomas said.

A representative of Bellar’s filed with Thomas at 11:21 a.m. on Dec. 26. Bellar said if her team had been told before the 5 p.m. deadline about the discrepancy, the result of a misunderstanding of filing requirements for independent candidates, they could have rounded up the needed signatures in time.

The series of events made it seem to Bellar like village officials were trying to keep her from running.

"I got squelched by some inside job off of the ballot," Bellar said.

Thomas responded by saying that there was "absolutely not" any ulterior motive in Bellar’s case and that the clerk treated Bellar no differently than the other candidates who have made the same mistake in the past.

Though she felt bad about Bellar's situation, Thomas said it’s not the clerk's responsibility to alert candidates that they don’t have enough signatures after they've filed.

"The book is pretty explicit," Thomas said, referring to the state’s candidate guide. "If they don’t have enough signatures, that’s a pretty substantial error."

Bellar said the clerk should change her policy and tell candidates about filing mistakes before it's too late for the candidate to correct them.

Thomas told Bellar she could file to be a write-in candidate with county election authorities, but Bellar said she chose not to.

The 65-year-old Bellar has lived in Burr Ridge for six years. She is a licensed physician in Illinois and Wisconsin, and is currently working as an independent contractor with Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin.

She formerly worked at MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island until last November when her contract was not renewed. Bellar went on Fox News afterward to discuss the hospital's decision with Greta Van Susteren. She said then she believed her former employer's decision was politically motivated.

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