The free tools available on the web are truly amazing.  One that we’ve added recently to our site is Google Translate.  There was a time where I was conversationally fluent in Spanish, but those days are past.  So it’s a little tough for me to really evaluate the quality of the translation offered here.  Regardless, this is certainly an improvement over nothing and gives us one other way to reach out to the many different ethnic groups that avail themselves of the services of our office.

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

Minutes for the County Board meeting aren’t posted until approved at the next County Board meeting.  But here is the roll call for the Management Performance Associates contract that was approved last night.

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

The County Board meeting will be broadcast tonight on Cable channel 2 in CU.  There is a closed session anticipated shortly after public participation.  We’ve had some difficulty getting back live on the air, but hopefully that won’t be a problem tonight.

Anyone following the local news is aware of the severe budget problems at the Champaign County Nursing Home. In January, the County Board passed a resolution creating a Nursing Home Board of Directors. The first meeting for the new board is set for 7:30 in the morning on May 5.

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.

Good news for local governments. But I guess bad news for your personal cash flow. Property tax bills are set to go out on May 2nd. Champaign County is one of just 5 or 6 counties to get their bills out by the statutory date in the beginning of May. Great work between my office, the Supervisor of Assessments, the Board of Review, all local assessors and the County Treasurer makes this possible.

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.

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.