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.

The question on the ballot regarding whether we should hold a new Constitutional Convention has become a tragedy of errors.

The timeline seems to have gone as follows.  The General Assembly passed HJR 111 which created a House-Senate committee of eight members which crafted language for the submission of the question of a Constitutional Convention to the voters.  This was followed by HJR 137 which was the actual ballot language as well as explanation of the reasons to vote for and against the ballot issue.  The Secretary of State then submitted the question as passed by the legislature to the State Board of Elections on July 1st.  The State Board of Elections then certified the ballot question on August 29th, adding Notice language that was not in the White certification but was in the the State Statutes.

On September 19th and September 22nd, two lawsuits were filed in Cook County Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality and legality of pretty much all the various actions above.  These are to be heard on Wednesday and hopefully decided at that time.

The issue poses a multitude of questions, some of which are addressed in the court filings, others which are not.

First is the question of which provision of the Constitution this question was submitted under.  Section 1(a) deals with legislative submission of the Con Con question.  Section 1(b) deals with submission when the legislature fails to act.  We know that the legislature acted under 5 ILCS 25.  HJR 137 references the language of 1(b), without specifically citing it.  It could be read that the citation of 1(b) was preliminary to the General Assembly acting under 1(a).  In any case, this submission is at the very least a hybrid of these two sections of the statute.

If the legislature was acting on 1(a) though, the question of timeliness will have to be addressed.  A submission under 1(a) must be passed at least 6 months prior to the election.  So if the GA was acting under 1(a), this question would then appear on the 2010 ballot.

But what if the legislature had acted in a timely fashion?  What if they had passed a Con Con submission in March?  It seems that the question would have to appear on the November ballot this year.  As such, logic would say that the SOS would not have to submit the question.  So could the passage of the HJR in May satisfy the 20 year requirement, but result in the question actually being placed on the 2010 ballot?

Presuming, as most do, that this submission is under 1(b), the next question is whether the General Assembly can, by statute, tell the Secretary of State how to handle his Constitutional duty to submit this question.  This relates to 5 ILCS 25, the Constitutionality of which is being challenged in one of these suits.  I’m pretty convinced that the legislature can’t instruct the SOS in this regard, although there is nothing to preclude the SOS from taking their “advice” as laid out in the HJR.  So the language itself, while incorporated in HJR 137 is really ultimately the responsibility of Jesse White.

White’s submission on July 1st does not include the Notice language of 10 ILCS 16/6 that is factually incorrect.  For some reason, which may be explained further at the court hearing, the State Board of Election added that language.  It’s fairly irregular to add such a statement when not included in the certification, and the fact that the statement, while in the statute, is clearly wrong makes it highly irregular.  In one of the court cases it is suggested that the SBE had no discretion here and was merely following the law and that it would have been necessary for the law to be changed or for a court to order them not to follow the law.  Unfortunately, this is far from the only instance in Illinois law where a law has been nullified by other statutes but still is in the statutes.  In fact, interestingly, the “separate” ballot provision in 16/6 is being totally ignored due to the new voting equipment.

I think the plaintiffs here have a difficult time getting around the laches defense from White and the SBE.  The language was in the HJR that passed in May and no one challenged it until September.  While there was less time to respond to the SBE certification on August 29th, there is still a strong argument that a challenge to that certification should have happened prior to September 19th.  For example, if this had been a referendum filing by citizens, the challenge to that petition would have to have been filed within five days after the last day to file the petition.

Nevertheless, the presence of factually incorrect language on the ballot as well as highly biased language demands attention by someone.  The question is who will address it and what will be the remedy.

As to who will address the issue, it seems pretty clear that it can’t be left up to the discretion of the three entities with the original responsibility.  I’m not sure they could clean up the mess, and I don’t think they should be trusted to do so.  As such, it’s going to fall on a court to order something.

Here are the possible remedies I can see.

First, order that new ballots be printed with neutral and factually correct language.  The cost of this would be about $2 million for ballots alone.  The additional cost of staff time would be difficult to measure.  New ballots would have to be sent out to voters who have already received them.  Further, much equipment has already been tested, so there would more testing required, and with the shortened time frame to make adjustments to the programs, there’s greater likelihood of errors being made.

Second, order that the ballots have the objectionable language crossed out with a marker.   This would be an invitation to delays on election day and also might create problems with ink bleeding through ballots and creating phantom votes on the other side of the ballot.

Third, put a sticker over the language on the ballot.  I’m not sure if a ballot with a sticker on it would go through our machines, and quite frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to test it on a machine that costs $5,000.  Once again, the stickering process would likely happen on election day and create delays.

Of course, for a price, we could find temporary workers to do stickering or lining out prior to election day if it was ordered to do either.

Fourth, we could distribute an additional piece of paper to voters explaining the problems with the language.  It’s likely that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit wouldn’t think too well of that solution because the original prejudicial  language would remain on the ballot.

Fifth, the judge could order Jesse White to certify a new Con Con for 2010 and invalidate the present question while allowing the question to remain on the ballot.  Signs could be put up informing the voters that votes on the question will not be tabulated.  The plaintiffs here might be inclined to accept such a solution, but with some reluctance.  With Springfield in shambles and the feds breathing down the necks of various polticians, there has never been a better time to campaign on a reform message.  Although only the most optimistic people think that state government will look appreciably better in 2010.

Personally, I’d like to see this question pitched for this election, but not reprint ballots.  The General Assembly, Secretary White, and the State Board of Elections all share some culpability here.  The plaintiffs even have some because of the lateness of their lawsuit.  It seems that this would be a good time to have a do-over.  The voters deserve an unbiased up and down vote on this important issue.  At this stage, there really is no way to do that without moving the vote to 2010.

I know many people, organizations and classrooms may want to hold their own mock elections.  In the punch card days it wasn’t really possible to accommodate the requests.  Now, we have created two different mock election ballots.  One has just the presidential ballot. The other also includes the ballots for U.S. Senator and Congressman.

And in a more light hearted, yet somewhat educational vein, you can print out a couple word searches for children and students and adults with idle time on their hands.

The last time we had a call for a Constitutional Convention was 1988.  The Secretary of State at the time was Jim Edgar.  I pulled the ballot page from our digital archives and found that the language contained far less, shall we say, commentary than the language on the current question.   You can view it here. Further, the “Notice” language which the State Board of Elections included in their certification this year and which I presume was submitted by Secretary White, was not on the 1988 ballot.

Over the three years that we’ve been using optical scan voting, there have been a number of comments about the design of the ballot.  We’ve responded to a number of the excellent suggestions.  In an effort to assist election officials in this regard, the Brennan Center has completed a study called Better Ballots. It’s a great study and I anticipate that at least one of their suggestions will be incorporated this year in Champaign County on top of a number that are already part of our ballots.

They recommend shading all the instructional portions above the candidates’ names.  Right now we’ve been shading just that area that describes the jurisdiction that the candidates are running within.  Look at page 43 of the guide to see examples of what I’m talking about.

We’ve improved the wording informing people that they need to vote the back of the ballot and we are getting fewer complaints regarding that.  Our judges have also done a better job of informing voters about that.

We also don’t use the “complete the arrow” voting that is something of a relic and which I always figured would cause confusion when I saw it demonstrated.

State law has now changed and required election authorities to put the language “vote for not more than”.  We had already incorporated that change on our ballots (using the words “up to”) because we had so many people confused about whether they could vote for less than the number to be elected (you can).

A new change for this year on our ballots will be to spell out the number in the term of office and put the numeral for the number to be elected.  We have found that some people see the term of office and think that is the number to be elected.  Hopefully, by having a single numeral in the directions, that will be the focus of the voter’s attention and errors will be eliminated.

An upcoming challenge in 2010 will be trying to explain to voters the new law that will require them to vote for a candidate for statewide constitutional officers.  I’m glad we don’t have to deal with that this time.

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.