Let us know what you think about our new County Board maps and Legislative District maps.  I think our staff has done a great job.

The Supreme Court today ruled constitutional laws such as the one in Indiana that require voters to show identification when they vote.

Each election, we get a number of questions from voters about the lack of this requirement in Illinois. The only people required to show ID in Illinois are those registrants who did present ID at the time of their registration. Under the Help America Vote Act those voters have to show ID at the polling place.

The Bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker recommended that all voters be required to show ID when they vote.

This is a difficult issue. I have a lot of sympathy for the views of those who find these laws to be burdensome. And I’d hate to have people lose their right to vote because they happened to leave home without an ID.

However, on balance, with the overwhelming concern from the public about election fraud, I see voter ID laws as being a good idea. We need to do more to give the public confidence that every vote is being counted and that only those people who are eligible to vote are able to vote. Of course, any voter ID law should be accompanied by appropriate provisional voting provisions that ensure that people who inadvertently forget their identification are still allowed to vote and given a chance after the election to give their ID.

I’m planning to make a trip to South Bend next week to see how the Indiana law works in practice. I’ll post about it when I get back.

One of the departments in Champaign County that is doing great work is the GIS Consortium. Under Mark Toalson, and now Leanne Brehob-Riley, our mapping in the County has made great strides. Our office has been working with them on the political boundaries and have begun the process of creating new precinct maps. This will be followed up with new maps for County Board and Legislative lines. Here is the map page on our website.

For each election, we hope to be able to craft special maps in each precinct to show voters where they live in regard to the various elections and/or referenda that are being presented.

As I reviewed the maps we’ve put together so far, I started to muse about what I’d want in a precinct map as a candidate and volunteer. If you’ve got thoughts and would like to volunteer to help my staff put together these maps, we’d love to hear from you. Hopefully, by September, we’ll have maps that will fit the needs of voters, volunteers, and candidates.

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.

Follow this link for the absentee and early voting numbers so far. This link will show you a comparison with two years ago. We’ll keep it updated at some point each day.

Each primary election I get numerous phone calls from voters who are disturbed by the Illinois requirement that you declare your party affiliation at the polling place on election day in order to be able to participate in the party primaries. I’ll try here to give some explanation for why this is done.

Before examining the closed primary system, it is good to identify the terms, which often confuse people. A closed primary is one that is closed to people who are not members of the party. In Illinois, you become a member of the party on election day by OPENLY declaring your membership in the party that day. An open primary is one where you don’t have to declare your affiliation.

The closed primary is set up to prevent what is called party raiding. That is the practice of members of one party crossing over and influencing the primary of the opposite party. Those “raiders” could either vote for a candidate who holds views very similar to their own party or, more cynically, for a candidate that they believe would be easiest to beat.

In years where the nomination is far from certain (like 2008) this is not a major issue. But in years where one party’s nominee is certain (for example the Republicans in 2004) it could be an issue.

The Republican and Democratic Party Delegate selection rules each recognize this concern and thus require that a person’s party affiliation be publicly declared.

The Republican Party rules state: (page 8 )
(2) Only persons eligible to vote who are deemed as a matter of public record to be Republicans pursuant to state law or, if voters are not enrolled by party, by Republican party rules of a state, shall participate in any primary election held for the purpose of electing delegates or alternate delegates to the national convention or in any Republican caucus, mass meeting, or mass convention held for the purpose of selecting delegates to the county, district, or state conventions, and only such legal and qualified voters shall be elected as delegates to county, district, and state conventions;

The Democratic Party rules state:
1. Democratic voters shall be those persons who publicly declare their Party preference and have that preference publicly recorded.

So while the Illinois legislature could alter the law to make Illinois an open primary state, it is likely that neither party would recognize the results of that election.

The “closedness” of primaries across the country varies. In Illinois, there is no declaration of party at the time of voter registration. Instead, you publicly declare your affiliation on the day you vote in the primary election, regardless of how you have voted in the past. In fact, you could even declare for one party, get in the polling booth, change your mind after you see the ballot, return the ballot to the judges, and get a new ballot of another party!

Illinois law changed this past year to become more forgiving of party switching. In previous elections, if you had signed a petition for a candidate of one political party for a primary election, you were unable to vote in the same primary election for a different political party. Now you can vote in any primary, regardless of what petitions you may have signed in the past.

Compare that to the State of Florida. There you have to register your party affiliation with the County Election Office at least four weeks prior to the primary. So for Florida voters, that would need to have been done prior to the first votes being cast in Iowa.

Because so many voters in Champaign County, and throughout the state, routinely switch their party affiliation from one primary to another, no one should skip voting because they feel that they are being “labeled” when they declare their affiliation on February 5.

This presidential primary season has been the most exciting in my lifetime. I expect record turnout, even with the closed primary rule.

Some questions have been raised about the consequences of a candidate being removed from the ballot due to an objection to their nomination papers. I’ll explain a few things that happen.

First, a common question we receive regarding elections is “How long does it take to print the ballots?” This typically comes about when there are questions about candidate certifications that might delay the opening of absentee voting.

Practically speaking, the printing of the ballot is no barrier to absentee and early voting. We do not print the ballots for absentee and early voting in bulk, but rather print them from a computer as they are needed. This means that as soon as the ballots are designed in house and some testing is conducted, they can be used for absentee voting. This saves us lots of money. Also, because the particular ballots are linked by computer to your voter registration, it prevents you from getting the wrong ballot when you come to vote.

It also makes sense from a purely logistical point. We have over 900 different ballots for this election. Imagine trying to design a system to store them in bulk for absentee voting so that they could be quickly retrieved. It would be virtually impossible.

Second, the removal of the candidate’s name from the ballot is in some ways easy, but also fraught with some concerns. Anytime you change the ballot, you have to make sure that those changes don’t impact the rest of the ballot. For example, if you’re not careful, oval positions can change. We will conduct quite a few tests to make sure that the ballot changes that we make when removing a candidate, don’t create problems in other areas.

Of course, the whole process might have to be redone if changes made today get reversed in future days.

As to the ballots on election day, we have plans to order about 3300 for County Board District 9 Democrats. Our printer has assured us that those can be done as late as Saturday prior to the election. We certainly hope we don’t need to wait that long, but if necessary we can.

Gov. Blagojevich signed the omnibus election bill SB 662 on Friday. With a single exception, I believe the bill is excellent. Here are some provisions.

Allows first time voters to cast an absentee ballot by mail if they provide sufficient ID to the election authority.

Allows people who sign a petition for one political party to cross over and cast a ballot in the primary of a different political party.

Requires writein candidates to file at least 61 days prior to the election (Thursday, December 6, 2007 for the February Primary). This provision will help us reduce the length of the ballot and eliminate thousands of invalid writein votes which are cast for candidates who have not filed as writeins.

Reduces the number of printouts of election results needed at the polling place. This should save some time for election judges.

Raises the pay for election judges by $20 pending funding by the state.

Allows high school juniors to serve as election judges under the same provisions for high school seniors.

Changes the filing period for independent candidates until June. (previously they would file at the same time as established party candidates)

The unfortunate provision in this legislation takes effect for the 2010 election. That requires our voting equipment to be set to detect undervotes on ballots for Constitutional Offices and to initially reject such ballots. Under this provision, if you go in and vote for Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Treasurer but leave blank the office of Comptroller, the voting equipment will beep, inform you that you’ve undervoted and give you a chance to recast your ballot. This provision will cause a number of people to have the privacy of their ballot compromised, especially those who are blind or visually impaired and use the Automark Voter Assistance Terminal.

Hopefully, in the next two years we can get this provision changed. Other states have had this provision in the past and then eliminated it because of the problems it causes on election day.

All in all though, this bill is good and will have a positive impact on voters and the election process.

During this last year our staff has been doing a lot of work in compiling the historical documents in this office. One part of that history are the referenda that have been held. We now have a list of those available on our website in date order or in order by taxing district.

I’ll try to keep this updated. A list will be on the website too. I won’t be posting precinct committeemen here.

Edited at 5:15 to fix Walter Pituc. Sorry

Monday 4:45
Ron Bensyl, Republican, County Board District 2
Monday 4:20
Danis Pelmore, Democrat, Recorder of Deeds

Monday, 4:15
Devan Cousen, Democrat County Board District 9
Janie Miller-Jones, Republican, State’s Attorney

Monday 2:55
Joe Futrelle Green County Board District 8
Walter Pituc, Green, County Board District 7
Scott Tapley, Republican, County Board District 3
Pattsi Petrie, Democrat, County Board District 6, Full Term

Monday 1:00
Larry Sapp, Republican, County Board District 1

Monday 12:45
Pius Weibel, Democrat County Board District 7

Monday 10:45
Eva Jehle, Democrat, County Board District 6 Full Term
Lloyd Carter, Democrat, County Board District 5

Monday 10:15 Alfred Ivy III, Democrat, State’s Attorney

Friday 3:35 pm
Just one filing for today so far.
Kimberly Hooper, Democrat, Circuit Clerk

Thursday 8:40 am
Mark Medlyn, Coroner, Democrat

Wednesday 4:30 Carol Ammons, Democrat, County Board District 5

Brendan McGinty, County Board District 9 Democrat

Tuesday 4:30 Michael Richards, County Board District 6, Unexpired Term, Democrat

Tuesday 8:40

Julia Rietz, Democrat, State’s Attorney

Samuel Smucker, County Board District 8, Democrat

3:30 update

Steve O’Connor, Republican County Board District 4

Noon Update
John Jay, Republican County Board District 1

Janet Anderson, Democrat, County Board District 7

9:00 Tony Fabri just filed for County Auditor on the Democratic ticket.

8:00
Linda Frank, Circuit Clerk, Brad Jones, Auditor, Barb Frasca, Recorder, Duane Northrup, Coroner on the Republican ticket

Ken Goodchild County Board District 4, Republican

Wayne Williams, County Board District 6, Full Term, Democrat

Giraldo Rosales, County Board District 6, Full Term, Democrat

No other 8:00 filings. Seems like a record low number.