In Champaign County, for local candidates seeking nomination or election at the March 20, 2012 Primary, only one objection to nomination papers was filed – that of Stephen Frank vs Stephanie Holderfield, Republican candidate for Circuit Clerk.  The objection alleged that Holderfield, a Republican candidate, had signed a nominating petition for Ben Carlson, a Democratic candidate for Auditor, and thereby invalidated her own nomination papers.  You can read the objection in its entirety here.

The objection was heard by the County Officials Electoral Board, in accordance with 10 ILCS 5/10-8, through 10-10.1.  The Electoral Board is created by statute to hear such objections, and consists of the State’s Attorney, Circuit Clerk and County Clerk as Chair, or their designated representatives.  For this Board, the members were State’s Attorney Julia Rietz, Circuit Clerk’s Supervisor Sandy Romans (as designated by Circuit Clerk Linda Frank) and myself.

The Electoral Board met twice, on December 16, 2011 and January 6, 2012, to consider the issues in the objection.  There was an initial Motion to Recuse from the candidate due to alleged bias of Board Member Romans and myself, which was denied.

I want to share some of the record of the proceedings here for public comment and feedback.

The candidate submitted to the Board both a Response and a Brief, with affidavits from Stephanie Holderfield and Todd Holderfield attached as exhibits.

The objector, in addition to the original objection, submitted a Brief, with five exhibits (A, B, C, D and E).

The Board ruled on a 3-0 vote to deny the objection, and the Board’s Findings are here.

The two court cases referenced by the Findings are Watkins v Burke (1984) and Rosenzweig v State Board of Elections, Hebda (2011).

If you have feedback about the issues in the case, how we heard it, or my role in it, please let me know.  Thank you.

Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day.  Our office is closed to honor the service and sacrifices of our veterans, which makes possible the very freedoms that allow us to conduct elections and chose our Federal, State and local leaders.

This is also an appropriate time to recognize that those currently serving in our military face unique challenges in voting, and that we have an obligation to make voting as convenient and secure for our soldiers, sailors, and other service members as possible.  The 2012 General Election is now less than one year away, and we are now accepting requests for 2012 absentee ballots from military and overseas voters.

Military and overseas voters can submit a request for an absentee ballot by completing the application available online.   Once completed, the form may be returned to our office by mail, email, or fax.  The form does not need to be notarized.  This form will then be effective for both elections in 2012.

Immediate family members of active duty service members may, in some circumstances, also be able to submit absentee ballot requests on behalf of service members.  Voters or family members with questions may contact us by commenting on this blog post, by calling us at 217-384-3724, or by email at mail@champaigncountyclerk.com.

Thank you again to all our veterans for their service.  Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to facilitate your voting.

After canvassing today, and after counting 22 additional ballots (16 late-arriving absentees and 6 accepted provisional ballots), we have updated the results from the April 5 Consolidated General Election.  These results are final, have been certified as such and have been transmitted to the State Board of Elections.    We have some tasks remaining for this election, but we have already begun planning for the March 20, 2012 General Primary election.

An important piece of those preparations is a post-election evaluation that we will conduct over the next several weeks.  During an election, we ask election judges, workers, our staff and voters for feedback and suggestions.  We will go through this information as a staff, often in consultation with election judges and election day coordinators, review our procedures, and begin to implement changes almost immediately in some cases.

To assist us in better evaluating our elections administration and to help us improve your voting experience, please let us know your suggestions, ideas and criticisms.  Of course, we’d also like to know if you had a positive experience or want to share a complimentary story about an election judge, worker or our staff.  We’ll include all of these comments with the other information we consider when evaluating how we can serve you better.  You can share your feedback here in comments, by calling us (384-3724), by email, on Facebook or Twitter.

Thank you.

In accordance with 10 ILCS 5/24B-15, we conducted our state-mandated retabulation this morning.  Retabulation is a post-election verification of the results we reported on election night.  After each election, the Illinois State Board of Elections randomly selects five percent of Champaign County’s precincts (usually six of our 117 precincts) for retabulation.  It is open to the public and media, and the leaders of the Democratic, Green and Republican Parties are invited.  Retabulation consists of re-testing the tabulators used in each precinct polling place on election day, verifying the test results, and then re-scanning and tabulating all of the early/absentee ballots that were cast in our office, and all of the ballots that were cast in the precinct on election day.  We check to ensure that the total number of ballots cast is the same on election day and on retabulation day.  We also perform a hand count of one race in each of the six precincts, with each established party choosing the race to hand count in two precincts.  Retabulation verifies that counting the same ballots in the same tabulator a second time gives the same results.

The precincts selected by the State Board for retabulation after the April 5, 2011 Consolidated General Election were  Ayers, City of Champaign 35, Cunningham 23, Mahomet 1, Mahomet 3 and Sadorus Ivesdale.  You can view the retabulation results here.

In five of the six precincts, the results of our retabulation and hand count exactly matched the unofficial results we reported on election night.  In Mahomet 3, as you can see here, we had two early/absentee ballots that had been correctly tabulated at the office but that could not be correctly tabulated by the machine in the precinct.  These ballots were counted and reported on election night, but because of how they were marked (with Xs in one case, with pencil in the other) the precinct tabulator would not read them.  We copied the ballots, explained the issue, and included them with our report to the Illinois State Board of Elections.

We will count late-arriving absentee ballots and accepted provisional ballots on Tuesday, April 19 for our final canvass.  After those results are included in our totals from election night, our results will be final and official.

Please share with us any comments, concerns, suggestions or complaints about your experience voting today.  Thank you.

From a press release we issued this morning:

Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten announced that absentee voting for the upcoming April 5th Consolidated General Election is now open at the County Clerk’s Office.    “We encourage anyone who cannot vote at their assigned polling place on Election Day, April 5, 2011 to make every effort to absentee vote in the Clerk’s Office,” said Hulten.  The office is located at 1776 East Washington Street in Urbana.

Absentee voting is now available to all Champaign County registered voters. No excuse is necessary.  Applications for absentee ballots may be made by mail or a registered voter may vote absentee in person in the office of the County Clerk, 1776 East Washington St., Urbana 61802.   If voting in person an absentee applicant’s identity must be verified by presentation of an Illinois driver’s license, Illinois ID card, or another government issued ID containing the applicant’s photograph.

Voters needing to vote absentee by mail may request an application for an absentee ballot by calling our office, mail, fax, through our web site (www.champaigncountyclerk.com), or by email. Requests should be made well in advance of the election in order to ensure enough time for delivery. Voters may contact the Clerk’s office at 217-384-3724 or visit the Clerk’s website at www.champaigncountyclerk.com.

The Consolidated General Election (on April 5, 2011 this year) is the most complicated election we administer.  Turnout is a little lower than a General Primary or General Election, but a few issues create unique challenges for our office for this election.  The first is that candidates file or caucus with their local election jurisdiction, rather than with our office, so we get information regarding who is running for which offices from our Local Election Officials (LEOs) – City & Village Clerks; School, Community College, Library, Park and Fire Protection District Board secretaries.  Our LEOs do a fantastic job, but administering election law is a complex process they face only once every two years.  Inevitably, changing laws and a general unfamiliarity with the process cause lots of confusion and lots of questions.

The second complication is the sheer number of jurisdictions and the myriad ways in which they interlock create the need for more than 270 different ballots just for Champaign County.  We have precincts that, because of the way the different districts overlap voters’ residences, will have nine different ballots cast in their precinct for April’s election.  Creating and managing all these different ballots is a challenge not only for our office, but for our Election Judges in the precincts on Election Day as well.

The third complication is that the April 5, 2011 Consolidated General occurs so soon after the February 22, 2011 Consolidated Primary.  Luckily, we had only one race in Champaign County for the Primary, and it wasn’t a close result.  If we had more races, or any results had been in question, it would have limited our ability to open voting for all voters this early.  The preparations for the Consolidated Primary and Consolidated General also overlap to a great degree, and that is a complicating factor as well.

Regardless of the challenges, we are proud that absentee voting is now open, and hope you will take advantage of this increasingly convenient method of voting.

For the February 22, 2011 Consolidated Primary Election, which in Champaign County includes just one contest (a Democratic Primary for Alderman in Urbana’s Ward 2), in-person and by-mail absentee voting has begun.

To vote in person, please come to our office, at 1776 E. Washington in Urbana.

To vote by mail, you can request ballots either by calling our office at 217-384-3720, or by submitting a request online.

More detailed instructions for voting absentee are here.  Please email or call if you have any questions, and if you live in Urbana’s Ward 2, please remember to vote.

I wanted to post a quick hello message on my first day as Champaign County Clerk.

As you know if you’re reading this, Mark Shelden set an incredibly high standard as he led this office for 13 1/2 years, and I am honored to succeed him and greatly appreciative of all his advice and assistance during the past few weeks of transition.

I’ll be posting here regularly, just as Mark did, although my focus won’t be as much on election law, as I don’t yet have Mark’s expertise.  My initial posts will be on our office’s policies and procedures, how the law  impacts them, and perhaps ways we can use technology to better achieve our objectives and serve our County residents more efficiently.

For today, though, I just wanted to say hello, introduce myself, and say “Thank you” to everyone for their support, but especially to Mark and the office staff – the best in Illinois.  Thank you.

I doubt that I’ll have a better job than being Champaign County Clerk.  This wonderful opportunity to work with a great staff in service to the community in securing one of the most fundamental of our rights has truly been a blessing.

I’m moving on to become the Chief of Staff for Congressman Tim Johnson-IL 15.  I’m moving on to something different, but I can’t say better.

I can’t imagine that the issues that I care about in elections will ever be too far from my mind.   I’ll be following them with interest in my new position.

Thanks to all of you who put your confidence in me to safeguard Champaign County elections.  I have every expectation that the high standards for integrity and efficiency that have been established will be continued and improved upon by successor, Gordy Hulten.

Last month, I posted the results of our retab and hand count, and noted that there was an unexplained glitch.  We didn’t drop the issue and now I’m prepared to give some details on what we found out.

First, I want to thank ES&S who came in to our office to do a thorough examination of the ballots in question and proceed to determine what went wrong.  They found the problem.

What stood out on the problem ballots was the rather bold and big initials by the election judge.  At the same time, those same initials were on hundreds of other ballots in the precinct without causing any problem.

ES&S used a “Graphic Dump” on the M100 to show exactly what was being read in each oval on the ballot. What that graphic dump showed was that for the ballots in question, when placed in the machine top first, the M100 read not the area within the oval, but rather the area to the left.  That area to the left corresponds to the place on the top of the ballot where the judge’s initials go within the area that contains the column timing bars.

Essentially what appears to have happened is that when the judge’s initials cross into the timing area within a very limited range and at a very limited angle (that is, very horizontal), that extra line is being read as one of the column timing bars.  No one at ES&S had seen this before, and it is odd enough that it is unlikely that its cropped up many times before.  At the same time, I’d be surprised if we were the first people to witness this.

Taking this information, we decided to have some fun and see if we could design some ballots that would misread but still count votes.   The problem on election day and in the retab did not result in votes being cast incorrectly, but rather in either an unreadable ballot or overvote.

You can see a ballot that we designed as well as the results tape.   We then put the line at the top in the timing area to replicate the error.  If you look at the results tape, you can see that while we filled in the oval for Ed Ott both times on race 4, the machine read those votes as votes for Blankenship because instead of picking up the filled in oval, it picked up instead the words in the candidate name in the column to the left.

As I said, this is a very unique set of circumstances.  Nevertheless, we’ll be changing instructions to judges about the initials crossing into the timing area to prevent it from happening again.