Hyper-local media mogul (and former Chicagoist) Mike Fourcher, the man behind Center Square Journal and the recently-launched Roscoe View Journal, is taking an idea he says he’s been thinking about for five years live today: Early and Often, which builds on a lot of the work that Jimm Dispensa did with Aldertrack in 2007. The subscription-based Chicago political news site covers not only the (newly exciting) mayor's race but also every aldermanic race in the city, in depth, as well as the City Treasurer and Clerk campaigns. more ›

Yesterday, we mentioned a potential snag in the set election dates for the primary and special elections to elect the new U.S. congressman for the fifth congressional district. We talked with James P. Allen, Communications Director of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Here's how he explained it:

This litigation is standard procedure with special elections. The same court action was filed last year to obtain a virtually identical court order for the 14th Congressional District special primary and special election to fill the vacancy after the resignation of U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert.The reason is that the overall calendar in the election code on various items (candidate petition circulation, petition filing, objections, grace period, early voting, mail-in absentees, canvassing the results) is for a primary and general election that span many months, not several weeks. Thus, a court order sets the ground rules for all of the candidates up front. Additionally, such a court order would have been necessary no matter how the writ of election were issued, because the law requires both the primary and special election to be completed inside a compressed schedule of 115 days.