Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Elections Administration topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Clerk reports early voting turnout, judge shortages and explains voter-ID and provisional ballot rules
Summary
LaSalle County Clerk told the Taxes, Election & GIS committee that early in-person voting has begun with about 100 voters, the county still needs election judges in several precincts, and state statute limits when clerks may ask for ID; provisional ballots may be used and voters have seven days to provide proof for counting.
LaSalle County’s clerk told the county’s Taxes, Election & GIS committee on Feb. 17 that early voting has begun and the office is preparing for the March 17 primary.
“Early voting has started, and we've had about a 100 voters so far for in person,” the county clerk said, adding the office has received 12 ballots from the drop box and one by mail and that approximately 3,500 vote-by-mail packets have been sent for the election. She said the office still needs election judges in several precincts and that more than 400 high-school students have signed up to serve as judges in some capacity.
Committee members and the clerk discussed training and certification for judges. A proposal cited in committee would differentiate pay between judges who complete a full certification and those who do not, and allow seasoned judges to take a two-hour refresher class rather than a full four-hour session, unless new equipment or processes require full training.
The clerk also described how the county handles voters without identification. By state statute, she said, staff "cannot ask for ID" of a registered voter; if a voter is already registered and supplies the required name and address and a matching signature, they may vote without showing a photo ID. If someone is registering at the polling place because they have moved into the county and are not already in the system, they must show proof of identity and current address (a utility bill within the last 60 days is acceptable). If a signature is challenged, the ballot may be treated as provisional; the voter then has seven days to provide documentation to the clerk’s office for the ballot to be counted.
Don Jensen and others in the meeting raised federal proposals for universal mail-ballot programs and expressed concerns about cost and security for automatically mailing ballots to roughly 75,000 registered voters in the county.
Next steps: the clerk will continue to recruit judges, finalize training and implement signage for any polling-place changes once the board has acted on the polling-places resolution.
