I wanted to post a quick hello message on my first day as Champaign County Clerk.

As you know if you’re reading this, Mark Shelden set an incredibly high standard as he led this office for 13 1/2 years, and I am honored to succeed him and greatly appreciative of all his advice and assistance during the past few weeks of transition.

I’ll be posting here regularly, just as Mark did, although my focus won’t be as much on election law, as I don’t yet have Mark’s expertise.  My initial posts will be on our office’s policies and procedures, how the law  impacts them, and perhaps ways we can use technology to better achieve our objectives and serve our County residents more efficiently.

For today, though, I just wanted to say hello, introduce myself, and say “Thank you” to everyone for their support, but especially to Mark and the office staff – the best in Illinois.  Thank you.

I doubt that I’ll have a better job than being Champaign County Clerk.  This wonderful opportunity to work with a great staff in service to the community in securing one of the most fundamental of our rights has truly been a blessing.

I’m moving on to become the Chief of Staff for Congressman Tim Johnson-IL 15.  I’m moving on to something different, but I can’t say better.

I can’t imagine that the issues that I care about in elections will ever be too far from my mind.   I’ll be following them with interest in my new position.

Thanks to all of you who put your confidence in me to safeguard Champaign County elections.  I have every expectation that the high standards for integrity and efficiency that have been established will be continued and improved upon by successor, Gordy Hulten.

Today, April 19, was the last day for the established political parties to fill vacancies in nomination when no candidate was nominated in the primary election.   For the first time, no established political party candidate filed to run against me.  New political party candidates and independents can file for office in June so it is no guarantee that I’ll  be unopposed.  Nevertheless, not having an opponent from the opposition parties is gratifying.

I’m sure I could give a host of reasons for the lack of opposition.  But first, foremost, and without peer is the great work of the staff in my office.  Over nearly 13 years they have provided great service, fair and honest elections, and progressive advances in every area of this office.  Every week I have multiple people who approach me and  compliment the work of my office.  The confidence and support of the public in general is reflected in those compliments and hopefully is reflected in the lack of opposition.

Thanks so much to my staff who has served so well and earned such trust.

Yesterday afternoon, after posting the latest Pew Center report on the costs of voter registration I received the Pew spreadsheet of the costs. Since I mentioned yesterday that they hadn’t been forthcoming in providing the information, I though I ought to get it posted right away.

For the record, I first requested this data on December 28, 2009.  I received a “We’re in the process” response on January 8, 2010.  I followed up on February 18, 2010.  On February 24, 2010 I received another “We’re in the process” response.  I don’t know if yesterday’s posting was the prompt for Pew turning over the spreadsheet or if it was mere coincidence.

Of course, like the mistake made on the OCVR we don’t have independent proof of the reliability of what is being presented.

Plenty more on this topic in future days.

We picked up the mail yesterday, and found no Republican ballots.   7 Democratic ballots were returned.  As it stands now, we have 8 Republican provisional ballots to count and 21 Republican absentees.  We’ll check the mail next Tuesday prior to the final tabulation of votes.  I don’t expect many more ballots to be returned.

Please let us know any thoughts you have on how election day went for you.  Also, any comments about the preprinted voter applications and undervote would be appreciated as well.

The hearing to consider our motion for an injunction on the undervote statute is December 17 at 10:00 a.m.  Judge Michael Jones will be hearing it.

We filed our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the undervote notification in Champaign County Circuit Court.

You can read the suit here.

We’ll keep you updated with additional information and filings.

If you accept that  open source in government is a good idea the next question is what to do about it.

As in any public policy initiative, the case needs to be made to the policy makers.  Unfortunately, they are often part of the problem as I noted earlier.   But each impediment to open source that I mentioned yesterday can be addressed and needs to be.

Second, there needs to be a broader initiative that includes more than a single unit of government.  The Champaign County Clerk’s office is unique in what we have done.  I could hardly expect our successes to be matched by individuals.  However, if more units of government were brought into a project, it will become doable.

Third, a coalition of governments needs to pick a project to begin working on.  One possibility is a project that would be smaller and less critical to establish a process to develop.  At the same time, governments need to identify those areas ripest for future development that are critical to their processes and which can enhance our services to citizens.

GOSCON is an organization that has been formed to begin the process of developing open source solutions for government.  I’ve wanted to go their conferences in the past, but our schedule for elections has gotten in the way.  This year their schedule meets up better with mine and I’m attending their conference in DC on November 5th.

It will be interesting to take the temperature of this movement and to see how their ideas can be of benefit to my office, the County, and maybe the state.  I’ll be writing about it when I return.

If I’m correct that open source software is such a winner for the government, why hasn’t it taken off?  There are a number of reasons, not all of them pretty.

Start with the deep pockets of government.  Government can spend money like no one else and rarely feels the pain when they misspend it.  In fact, misspending money often just results in an influx of more money with the suggestion made that not enough was allocated the first time.  Across the country you can bet that most bad software buys are followed by another bad software buy.

Follow that up with fear.  A little fear in this area is a good idea, because it prompts prudence and hopefully foresight.  But when it paralyzes, it’s to the disadvantage of the public.  Open source solutions present an ongoing fear for governments.  Instead of making a single decision about a software vendor, you end up making a series of decisions over many years.

Passing the buck is a favorite past time of today’s government officials.  Buying prepackaged software is part of that culture and links to fear.  When organizations develop software in house, even within an intergovernmental collaborative environment, they can be expected to be answerable for the performance of that software.  Much less so with a vendor or consultant. Once that decision is made to grant a single company the responsibility to develop a software solution, the government body is largely off the hook.  They take victory laps if it works well, but when it doesn’t work well, they practice their well worn fingerpointing.

I’m from Illinois, so perhaps corruption is more on my mind than most.  Nevertheless, software and consulting contracts are a ripe area for white collar patronage.  With ambiguous standards to meet to get a contract, and further ambiguity in meeting the terms, it can be easy to steer contracts to preferred individuals.

Looking just within their own organization, few local governments will find the programming talent to meet all their needs.  The best open source solutions are probably beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy governments.  If you’re not one of them, a prepackaged solution looks pretty attractive.

As a corollary, open source puts at least some strain on the organization’s resources.  And it often comes at the top.  If you’re a manager of a government unit, that often means that you’ll be spending more time shepherding a solution for your organization than if you had farmed it out.  That time may be precious or that manager might be lazy.

There are plenty of impediments.  But there are answers to all of them.  On the financial side, governments are broke and need to find cheaper solutions.  Fear, buck passing, talent, and time demands are problems answered with dynamic programming groups that share responsibility.  The benefits are so great that we have to find a way to work past the impediments.