I’d love to hear comments from anyone who is fluent in any of these languages.

YES (21)

Chris Doenitz , John Jay, Larry Sapp, Ron Bensyl, Stan James, Kevin Hunt, Brad Jones, Jonathan Schroeder, Alan Nudo, Steve Moser,   Stanley S. O’Connor, Claudia Gross, Michael Richards, Matthew Gladney, Janet Anderson, Carrie Melin, Pius Weibel, Tom Betz, Brendan McGinty, Barbara Wysocki, Steve Beckett

NO (4)

Carol Ammons, Lloyd Carter, Jr. , Lorraine Cowart, Jennifer K. Putman

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.

It can’t come at a better time as this will give a needed cash infusion to Champaign County which is running on empty at this time. The General Corporate fund should see about a million dollars by the end of May and the nursing home fund should get about $150,000.

You’ve got until June 2nd to pay your bill.

You can look up your bill right now at the County Treasurer’s 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.

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.