I just voted today absentee.  While the law allows election officials to vote absentee this is the first time I’ve done it since I’ve been County Clerk.  I had a tough time getting away at the February primary and just didn’t want to take the chance this time.

Anyway, I was fully informed on the ballot and voted in 1 minute, 31 seconds.

Please please please, get your specimen and become informed and show up prepared!

We’re finding that it’s taking people a little longer than usual to cast their ballots this year.

First, we have thousands of first time voters.  Thousands more that are voting on the optical scan ballot for the first time.

But another reason for the lengthy time are the lenghthy ballot questions.  All but 31 voters in the County have three ballot questions dealing with the Forest Preserve District, the County sales tax for schools, and the Constitutional Convention.  Voters in City of Champaign Township have a tax increase as well as an advisory referendum.  Voters in Cunningham Township have three advisory questions.  The Mahomet and Gifford areas also have referenda.

If you aren’t aware of these questions when you go to vote, just reading them will take awhile.  The best solution to that is to actually view and print out your specimen before you vote.  Commit your choices to memory, or even fill it out before hand.  Bring the specimen into the booth with you already filled out and a five  to seven minute voting procedure turns into two minutes.

To check your voter registration status and find your specimen ballot, go to the Check Your Registration Status page on our website.

If you’re a first time voter, look at our informational brochure about casting a ballot as well as our voting instructions.

I’ll try to keep this updated each day.  Absentee voting (with an excuse) started September 25.  Early voting started October 13 and continues to October 30.  In person absentee voting will resume on October 31.  Ballots are also being cast through the mail.

We are making steady progress in processing our registrations.  We ask people to be patient.  Our staff is putting in long hours.  But unlike four years ago, we have more to deal with.  Not only are registrations high, we also are doing Early Voting and Grace Period Voting.  The number of people walking through our doors to vote has more than doubled from the same period four years ago.

You can continue to look at our website to check your status.  That gets updated every night.  Right now, there are about 4-5 thousand registrations left to process.  We’ll be putting in overtime all next week and hopefully will be getting all cards out by Friday.

Every election brings a rash of e-mails that never seem to reach anyone who believes them but always reach hundreds that are convinced that someone else believes them.  The biennial favorite is the one that tells people of the opposite persuasion to vote on Wednesday.  These e-mails are routinely offered up as a supposed voter suppression tactic, although I’ve never believed it to be anything more than not-so-funny joke.  We’ve never gotten a call from anyone asking if it was true, but dozens of e-mails from people who are convinced someone else will believe it.

This year there are at least two e-mails circulating that have a few people up in arms.  The first is that if you wear political buttons or clothing into the polling place that a judge will ask you to leave or cover up the political material.  This one is true, but it’s hardly new to this election.  This has been happening for decades.  It applies equally to each party.  I think most states have something similar in place.  This is not some new scheme devised by either political party.

The second one claims that voters are being requested to vote straight party and vote for the candidate as well.  This doesn’t affect the State of Illinois because we don’t have straight party voting.  In other states, it’s affect would be negligible if not nonexistent.  I think every state except New York has new voting equipment that would detect any error that would negate a vote and give the voter a chance to remake their ballot.   Under the old Illinois straight party voting system, a straight party vote along with a vote for a candidate for president would not negate your vote.  I’m pretty confident most states and most equipment treats these votes that way.

Be prepared for more chain e-mails with little credibility but that excite a lot of angst.  Perhaps someone will combine a few elements.  “My name is Mr. Ovalfiller.  I am the foreign minister for the nation of Votzinazius.  If you will only vote for Fred Smith for President of the United States, I will transfer $200 million into your bank account.”

This election in Champaign County we will be transitioning to a method of handling combined poll locations that is already happening in many places in the State of Illinois.

In the past, at the 22 polling places (44 precincts) where there were two precincts, there were also two sets of judges.  Along with those two sets of judges were two sets of signature books, applications, and assorted other election materials.  Some locations had two sets of booths.  All had a single tabulator.

For voters it could be somewhat confusing because they might not know which line to get in at the polling place.  In addition, a number of voters were frustrated as the line for one precinct might just have a couple voters while their own line had thirty.  Why, they often asked, couldn’t those judges assist with the other line?

Now, new technology that we’ve designed and implemented in our office, makes it possible to easily combine the signature books and other election materials for each polling place that houses two precincts.

For voters, it means that you won’t have to figure out the correct line to stand in.  It also means that all judges in a polling place will be working to serve all voters there.  In a busy election, that will hopefully result in shorter lines.  In a smaller election, it hopefully will mean that we can operate with fewer judges and save taxpayer dollars.

Our voter registration kiosks were used by 2,785 voters from August 15 until the close of registration at midnight on October 7.  Nearly half, 1,253 occurred on the last two days.  I was at the undergrad library at midnight to see the last few people get registered, including one person who wasn’t able to get in under the deadline.

Processing cards from the kiosks is notably easier than the hand written cards from various other methods of registration.  Our scanning program pulls all the information off the cards and it just needs to be verified.  The time to process them, in my estimation, is about one fourth the time to process a handwritten application.

An added benefit to the kiosks is that they provide security for the registrant’s information.  The card goes from the voter to the County Clerk’s office without fear that it will be copied by an outside party.

Hopefully we’ll have more kiosks available in future elections.  Combined with new technology in our office, they are providing more accessibility to registration for voters and more efficiency in our office.

And thanks to the University of Illinois and Jerry’s IGA for being gracious hosts of the kiosks.  They are providing a great service to the public.