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Village election committee narrows RFP, fixes ballot return address and tables referendum
Summary
At its Sept. 23 meeting the election committee agreed to limit an RFP to voter-roll verification, voted to set the ballot-package return address to the election committee office, and recorded a decision to table a proposed referendum provision; it also discussed restoring direct access to the village attorney.
The village election committee met Sept. 23 and agreed to streamline its work ahead of next week’s council meeting by narrowing an upcoming request for proposals to a single task: hire a contractor to perform voter-roll verification.
Committee members praised a ChatGPT-produced simplification of Appendix A (voter-roll verification procedures) presented by Jack, while stressing that any AI-generated draft requires human review to ensure it matches statutory and regulatory language. Jack offered an in-person tutorial on Oct. 19 from 1 to 3 p.m.
On operational matters the committee moved to fix a postal-delivery problem identified in prior years. Members said a small number of ballot packages had been returned to the contractor instead of the village, leaving a handful of voters without ballots. To prevent a repeat, the committee voted to amend the regulations so the return address on ballot packages will read the election committee at the VMA office address. The motion was seconded and carried with the committee voice vote in favor.
The group discussed a 2024 proposal to add referendum procedures to the election regulations. That draft would have allowed referendum questions on the ballot either by council placement or by community petition (the 2024 draft cited a petition threshold of 100 qualified voters). Committee members raised concerns about litigation risk, community size, and whether petitions or open public forums would provide sufficient public airing. The committee reported a consensus to table the referendum proposal for further study.
A central, and more contested, discussion focused on who should direct the election contractor during the operational phase of an election. One member argued village staff involvement — specifically the village manager acting as intermediary — creates a structural conflict of interest and weakens an electoral firewall between candidates and election operations. Council member Arthur countered that the village manager manages contracts and that the committee is a council-created body; he cautioned the committee that the council would consider the matter next week. The committee did not resolve the issue at the meeting.
The committee also addressed public-notice and legal-access procedures. Members agreed to adopt a simple change to section 3.3 of the regulations to require village staff to post election announcements "as submitted" by the committee, which committee members said will reduce the chance of content or timing edits that could bias an election. Separately, the committee reviewed a proposal to restore direct access for the election committee to the village attorney, noting that since 2020 legal questions have required a two-step routing (through the council chair or village manager) that can be slow and risk miscommunication. The committee decided to forward that recommendation as a separate, standalone item to the council for prompt consideration.
Next steps: the committee will include the finalized, single-task RFP and the amended ballot return-address language in its report to the council next Thursday. The chair said he will circulate draft materials to members by the coming weekend so they can be sent to the village manager by Monday.
