Feb 06 2008
Post Election Discussion
This was one of the most challenging elections in my 11 years as County Clerk. There was barely time to catch a breath the whole day. I think my staff and our election judges did an outstanding job in handling the recordbreaking turnout today.
Please use this to post comments and questions about the election. I’ll be posting more in the coming days, including a discussion about the ballots that we sent out to polling places and how we went about ordering ballots. That was certainly the big story for the day. But there is plenty more to discuss as well.
I’m reposting this from another comments thread. There are a few other, similar comments on that same thread–the one about Illinois primaries from a few weeks ago.
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I’d like to share MY experience from voting in the primary this morning.
I filled out my piece of paper with my name and address, and the election judge LOUDLY (and I do mean LOUDLY, so everyone waiting in line could hear it), read out my full name, my home address, and my party affiliation.
I’m not embarrassed by my political party affiliation, but I was a bit uncomfortable having my personal information read loudly by the election judge so everyone could hear it. I’ve been voting for many years, both in Champaign and in other communities where I have lived in the past, and have never experienced this before. The judge who was looking up the information in the voter registration books was sitting right next to him–there was no need for the noisy production. Heck, he could have HANDED the form to the next election judge–that’s always how I’ve seen it done in the past.
Please encourage election judges to value the privacy of voters’ personal information and party affiliations. Nobody wants their full name and address called out in front of a room full of strangers, and there are people who really DON’T want others to know about their political affiliations.
I vote at Parkland College. The election judge’s name was Terry (I believe) and he was a middle-aged man with a beard and a LOUD voice.
Privacy was handled very well at CC14. I was given the ballot in a privacy folder and told to show the signature to the judge before placing it in the machine myself. Much improved from past years!
As for the concerns of anonymous, the voter rolls and what ballot you pick up in a primary are public record. Your information is supposed to be read aloud for the benefit of poll watchers.
That’s interesting, Jim. I’ve never had my information read out loud before. Is this something new, or has every other election judge in my 18 years of voting been doing it wrong?
The announcement of the name publicly and out loud is required by state statute.
(10 ILCS 5/17-9) (from Ch. 46, par. 17-9)
Sec. 17-9. Any person desiring to vote shall give his name and, if required to do so, his residence to the judges of election, one of whom shall thereupon announce the same in a loud and distinct tone of voice, clear, and audible;
I voted at CU 14. Things ran smoothly. I was surprised at how busy it was for 10:30am (different than past elections at an off time).
Two comments.
First, I still wish there was a better way to preserve ballot privacy when sliding it into the reader. The card can be manipulated into a way to kind of shield it, but it’s a bit awkward and shielding it from others shields me from seeing what I’m doing too
I don’t know what the solution would be.
Second, CU 14 really needs more voting booths. The line backed up a bit simply because there weren’t empty booths. As I recall, there were 4 regular, one handicapped (lower), and they had also setup a folding table and two chairs. When I was there there were a lot of elderly voters voting (not strange overall but definitely not strange for clark-lindsey), and they seemed to take a bit longer. So anyway, I hope you’ll consider using more booths at CU14 next time.
Oh, one other comment. Why not use felt-tip pens instead of ball point? It would make marking the ballots a lot quicker and easier. I’d say voting now takes longer than the old hole punching did — mostly because of the slowness of filling in that little oval with a ball point pen.
But again, overall, things went smoothly.
As an election judge, I don’t always like reading everything out for everyone to hear also. I usually read it loud enough for the election judges to hear. Yes, I know it’s statute for it to be heard for everyone but with ID fraud these days I have my misgivings. The only time I really have to read it aloud is when there are pollwatchers. While we understand their job, sometimes it makes the judges job difficult. They don’t always listen and then you either have to repeat what you said or they like to look at your applications to see who voted. It’s annoying to me.
I think what would be good is to have election classes for the public (I know more overtime…) or even a program on a local access channel so that they know what is supposed to happen during their time in the polling place, deadlines and when should they change their registration, etc.
Mark does a decent job with this and with tightening budgets it has to be hard to do more “informing” but maybe a program on TV informing the public about voting and when and what does each type of election (primaries – pick candidates to run in the general) mean.
Like I said, it was steadily busy yesterday with some times being very crowded but it ran smooth overall.
Then there’s the “Why do I have to pick a party”. The fun thing yesterday was saying non-partisan and then the voter looks to see no candidates just referunda. While it’s probably not “right” but we ended up telling voters that Non-partisan means no candidates b/c most of them don’t understand what that type of ballot means.
Overall the experience went well for me on the other side of the table – just busy.
I vote non-partisan. By the time the third poll worker either questioned my choice of ballot or expressed surprise at my choice I was more than a little irate. None of the partisan voters at the polling place at the time were questioned or otherwise remarked upon. Would a comment like “You know you can’t vote for Huckabee if you take a Democrat ballot” be appropriate? I don’t think so, so why would such a comment be made to we Independents? This kind of commentary by pollworkers is at the very least entirely inappropriate and unprofessional, and should be illegal.
As for the comment by the election judge that “most of ‘them’ don’t understand,”
I find that attitude condescending and offensive.
I asked this of you before but I am still looking for better maps of the Illinois Congressional Districts. It seems my neighborhood here in Champaign is split between two districts but there is no map available via the internet which clearly shows the line.