Urbana residents who signed petitions to place Republican candidates on their primary ballots should be able to legally vote in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, according to a legal opinion released Sunday by lawyer William McGrath.

McGrath, a former Champaign County Democratic Party chairman, has more than 20 years of experience in election law and has worked with incumbent Mayor Tod Satterthwaite.

Satterthwaite is running for mayor of Urbana in the Democratic primary against Laurel Prussing and Shirley Hursey. No Republican is running for mayor, making the Feb. 22 primary winner the likely overall winner.

Voters in Urbana are allowed to declare which party they want to vote for when they go to the polls on Feb. 22. However, the exception to this is voters who signed petitions to place the names of Republican candidates on the ballot for the current primary and general election, Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden had said.

By signing a Republican petition those voters had declared themselves to be Republicans for this primary, Prussing’s supporters have said. Prussing campaign volunteers plan to be present at polling stations to contest those who signed the petitions for the Republicans and attempt to vote in the Democratic primary.

Some local Republican figures have recently said they are supporting Satterthwaite, including former Urbana mayor Jeffrey Markland and Steve Hartman, chair of the Champaign County Republicans.

McGrath said there is no basis for the challenges. He said the law only applies to elections in which the candidate that a resident signed the petition for can be voted on. No more than one Republican is running in any district, so there is no Republican primary.

McGrath also drafted a memorandum to election judges and poll workers suggesting that judges deny legal challenges to voters based on them having signed a Republican petition. He also wrote that judges should then instruct challengers that they would accept no more challenges on those grounds. If challenges do not comply they can be removed, McGrath wrote.

McGrath said that he believed Shelden had not counted on Republican primaries being cancelled because there were not multiple candidates in any election.

Satterthwaite responded positively to McGrath’s opinion.

“This is keeping with the tradition of allowing people to participate in democratic elections,” he said.

Satterthwaite accused the Prussing campaign of attempting to silence voters.

Attorney Ruth Wyman, an Urbana alderwoman who also works on the Prussing campaign, said she had not seen the new memo but that she had discussed Urbana’s situation with Pat Freeman of the Illinois State Board of Elections. Freeman indicated that voters who signed Republican petitions would not be able to vote, she said.

“If they signed a petition for Republican elections and they try to vote on Tuesday, they will be breaking the law,” she said.

Prussing said she was confident those who signed the petition cannot legally vote on Tuesday.

“If it’s Bill McGrath versus the State Board of Elections and the County Clerk, I’ll take the advice of the State Board of Elections and the County Clerk,” she said.

Shelden did not return phone messages to his home Sunday evening.