Mark Mossman from the State Board of Elections has a memo regarding the Primary Election in the packet of information for next week’s SBE meeting in Chicago.  It points out a number of problems with the undervote law that I and other Clerks had predicted.

Most of these complaints about the under-vote process centered on how election judges administered this aspect of voting and the misinformation judges provided. For example, some judges instructed voters to vote for each office or their ballot wouldn’t be counted. In other instances, judges verbally announced which office the voter didn’t cast a vote for, thus violating the voter’s ability to secretly cast their ballot. Some complained the news media (newspaper and TV) misinformed voters and instilled fear in some voters that if they didn’t vote for each constitutional office their ballot wouldn’t be counted. A few voters that called complained this law is a violation of their constitutional rights and interferes with their most basic and fundamental right in a democratic society to east their ballot in secret. I have received a few hostile calls from voters since Election Day complaining that their constitutional rights are being violated by this law and they will no longer continue to participate in elections when statewide constitutional offices are on the ballot.

Of course, voters who think they have a constitutional right to a secret ballot won’t find much comfort from the State Board of Elections.

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