This weekend

This weekend

This weekend I took advantage of the privilege of candidates to be a poll watcher at the early voting locations at Whiteside Middle School in Belleville and Cahokia Heights High School. I also cast my own ballot during this early voting opportunity.

Early In-person voting process

If you go to one of the early voting locations before Election Day on November 8, you will be asked to fill out an early voting form. The election judges will look up your voter registration status and whether you have requested a vote by mail ballot. If you are registered and have not requested a VBM ballot, the election judge will print off a ballot for your precinct (it is a blank strip of paper which they will print a bar code at the top of that the voting machine will read). The judge will initial the top of the ballot and direct you to the voting machines. If you did request a VBM ballot, you will need to surrender the ballot the county mailed to you before you are given a new ballot. If you don't have the VBM ballot (either it has not been delivered yet or was lost), the election judge will need to call the county clerk and ensure that the VBM ballot you were supposed to receive has been accounted for. Finally, if you are not registered to vote, or your registration is suspended, the election judges can register you at the polling location if you have two forms of identification, and at least one of which has your current address printed on it.

Once you have your in-person ballot (slip), casting your vote is straight forward: insert the ballot, barcode end first, into the voting machine. The machine will display the ballot options on the touch screen, allowing you to navigate through each race. The first question is for the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution (vote NO!!), and the description takes up two screens, so you'll have to press "Next" on the first screen before you can select your response ("NO"). The rest of the races are displayed one at a time. Once you've made your selection for each race, the machine will display a summary of your votes on the screen to allow you to confirm that it has recorded your selections correctly. Once you've confirmed it, the ballot you inserted at the beginning of the process will be printed with your selections and ejected from the voting machine. Review the paper ballot and confirm once more your selections have been recorded correctly. (If there are any issues, take your ballot to the election judges and indicate that the ballot does not reflect your choices. They will spoil the ballot to prevent it from being counted and issue you a new one.) If everything is as you want, take the ballot to the tabulator --typically next to the exit of the polling place-- and show the judge there the initials at the top of the ballot. Once they confirm the ballot has been properly issued, you can place it within the tabulator, which will count the votes and provide a total to the judges at the end of the voting period.

Written out, this may appear to be a complicated process, but if you voted in the primaries, then you should already be familiar with the voting machines and process. My time from filling out the early voting application to placing my ballot in the tabulator was probably about 5-7 minutes. The election judges are available to help if there is any confusion or if a voter requires assistance (e.g. disability prevents a voter from using the machine independently).

Temporary Early Voting Location Observations

While I was at Whiteside Middle School, there was a regular trickle of people coming in to cast their votes: never enough to get backed up or create a line, but enough to make sure the election judges did not get bored. One man came in to registered to vote, but did not want to vote that day. The election judges said that if he registered at the voting location, he would be required to vote the same day. But he could go register at the County Clerk's office anytime before Election Day and then vote whenever he was ready, up until Election Day.

In contrast to Whiteside, there was a line out the door at Cahokia High School. Insider, voters were finding out their registration had been suspended, they were not registered to vote, or they needed to surrender their VBM ballot. These scenarios took time for the election judges to work through for each potential voter and to their credit, they worked as fast as they could to address each voter's issue and ensure they could vote that day, if legally permitted. However, this extra work placed on election judges at the polling place could be avoided if Illinois would reform its voting process and laws.

My suggestions for improving the election experience in Illinois:

1. If we must have VBM: VBM ballots must be postmarked NLT two weeks prior to Election Day and received by close of business the Friday before Election Day. If voters cannot return them by this deadline, they must vote in person.
2. Eliminate day-of registration at voting locations other than the County Clerk's office. If potential voters are not yet registered, they should register online or in person at the County Clerk's office before going to vote.
3. Early in-person voting should start two weeks prior to Election Day. There should not be an overlap in VBM and early in-person voting.
4. All VBM ballots and early in-person voting should be counted and certified the day before Election Day. There should be no early vote ballots "discovered" after the polls close on Election Day as only in-person ballots will need to be counted.
5. On Election Day, election judges should be required to report the number of ballots accepted by the tabulator to the County Clerk every 60 minutes while the polls are open.
6. Finally, require a photo identification to vote. Illinois has Driver's Licenses, State ID Cards, Firearms Owner Identification Cards/Concealed Carry License, and more. There should be no reason that a resident of Illinois cannot verify who they are when they vote.