Who Are The Top 10, Bottom 10 Cook County Township Democratic, GOP Committeemen?

(Chicago, IL) – April 3, 2012. Special Report: Like the City of Broad Shoulders, the 30 Cook County suburban townships surrounding Chicago have their own elected Democratic and Republican committeemen who aim to push, pull, and drag voters to the polls like their city cousins–some doing it better than others.

Here, we give you our analysis (full report of all 30 ranked here) of the top 10, bottom 10 Cook County Democratic and Republican township committeemen.

We measured the effectiveness of a township committeeman by the percentage of registered voters that cast ballots in the 2010 elections, versus the raw number of voters who turned out to, well, vote.

Who are they?

Democratic Township Committeemen – Top 10

1. Thomas Cargie (River Forest) – 29.31%
2. Don Harmon (Oak Park) – 29.13%
3. Dean Maragos (New Trier) – 28.12%
4. Jeffrey Schoenberg (Evanston) – 27.51%
5. Tim Bradford (Rich) – 24.16%
6. John O’Sulivan (Worth) – 19.83%
7. Terry L. Matthews (Bloom) – 19.67%
8. Frank M. Zuccarelli (Thornton) – 19.01%
9. Robert Rita (Calumet) – 18.97%
10. Karen Yarbrough (Proviso) – 17.88%

An honorable mention and an honorary top 10 slot goes to Lou Lang, who cleaned up in Niles at 17.80%, missing the top 10 ring leaders by only .08%

Republican Township Committeemen – Top 10

1. Tolbert Chisum (New Trier) – 22.75%
2. Sigitas Vaznelis (Lemont) – 20.15%
3. Paul S. Pavlus (Barrington) – 17.95%
4. Aaron B. Del Mar (Palatine) – 16.38%
5. Jill A. Brickman (Northfield) – 15.02%
6. Ruth O’Connell (Wheeling) – 13.50%
7. Thomas C. Cronin (River Forest) – 13.47%
8. Judy Baar Topinka (Riverside) – 12.92%
9. Michael H. Sweeney (Elk Grove) – 11.46%
10. Lee Roupas (Palos) – 11.45%

Now we have the other side of the ledger.

Democratic Township Committeemen – Bottom 10

1. Bill Powers (Barrington) – 7.63
2. Gertrude Zaja (Hanover) – 8.27%
3. Sue A. Walton (Palatine) – 9.23%
4. Rocco Terranova (Schaumburg) – 9.54%
5. Barrett F. Pedersen (Leyden) – 10.65%
6. Christine Cegelis (Elk Grove) – 11.42%
7. Kathleen Sances (Wheeling) – 12.25%
8. Charles G. Hernandez (Cicero) – 12.33%
9. Laura M. Murphy (Maine) – 13.42%
10. Robert J. Lovero (Berwyn) – 13.98%

Republican Township Committeemen – Bottom 10

1. No Candidate (Calumet) – 1.21%
2. Judy A. Diekelman (Thornton) – 2.63%
3. Patrice J. Barr (Rich) – 3.59%
4. Linda Thompson LaFianza (Evanston) – 3.75%
5. Anthony Castrogivanni (Berwyn) – 3.78%
6. Douglas M. Troiani (Bloom) – 4.29%
7. No Candidate (Oak Park) – 4.31%
8. Michael Olik (Stickney) – 4.73%
9. Michael A. Corrigan (Proviso) – 5.34%
10. Patrick E. Rea (Bremen) – 5.97%

Call-outs to Judy Diekelman, Patrice Barr, Linda Thompson, Anthony Castrogivanni and Douglas Troiani – who prove the notion that no candidate is sometimes better.

To see our full analysis of all 30 committeemen rankings, you can download it here.

Send comments to Mark Jones at [email protected]