Illinois And The Mail-In Voting Election Mess – Wirepoints
The Illinois General Assembly held no hearings when it passed legislation this spring to vastly expand mail-in voting in the state. That’s right, no hearings were held on historic changes to the most important element of a democratic republic – the voting process. The legislation passed both houses on a nearly straight party line vote with Democrats supporting and Republicans opposing.
Troubles loom, though Illinois may be in better shape than many other states for the November 3 election. One thing certain is no final results in close races should be expected on election night, in Illinois or nationally.
The primary change Illinois made was vast expansion of vote by mail for this election. Anyone who cast a ballot in the past three years or who registered to vote or changed addresses after the March primary is being sent an application. Other eligible Illinoisans can request a mail ballot online.
That means mail-in votes will be far higher than ever before.
Illinoisans have already requested nearly1.5 million mail-in ballots. At that pace, over 25% of ballots cast probably will be by mail. That’s far higher than in recent elections. According to data we got from the Illinois State Board of Elections, mail-in ballots comprised just 9.3% of the total vote in the 2018 general election and just 9.1% in this year’s primary. In 2016, mail votes represented 6.5% of total votes in the general election.
In Illinois, mail in votes will be processed as they are received by county clerks, who are assigned that task. That’s why election officials prefer you send ballots in early. However, those will not be totaled until polls close at 7 P.M. on election night.
But that’s not the end. Illinoisans have until October 29 to request a mail-in ballot and have until November 3 to postmark their ballot, so election officials will be tabulating those until November 17, and final counts won’t come until after that date. How long that will take clerks is uncertain because the volume is uncertain.
That delay may be acceptable, but the bigger risk is litigation that could drag out close races. Suppose somebody finds a bag of ballots thrown in the garbage, or ballots are rejected because of a faulty postmark, or printed with an incorrect address, or bounced because the voter forgot to sign or signed too sloppily to match the signature on record, or any of many other potential problems. How hard will it be to find a political or activist judge in Illinois willing to intervene, especially when genuine voting rights are at issue?
The risk is there, but probably lower in Illinois than some other states. National stories abound about, as a Stanford election expert put it, Bush vs. Gore “on steroids,” a reference to the 2000 presidential race that ended up in the Supreme Court. Many other states have a worse deadline structure than Illinois. Voters in ten states don’t even have to request a mail-in ballot until November 2.
Litigation is already abundant. At least 300 lawsuits over voting and ballot procedures changed to address concerns about coronavirus have already been filed across 44 states, including seven in Illinois.
https://wirepoints.org/illinois-and-the-vote-by-mail-election-mess-wirepoints/