Category Archives: Voting

City of Peoria, Elections, General News, Peoria County, Voting

Attention Tea Party participants: Change happens at ballot box

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From the Journal Star:

A crowd estimated at more than 500 gathered outside the Peoria County Courthouse during the noon hour Wednesday to protest what they believe to be out-of-control government spending during a tax day “TEA (taxed enough already) party,” designed to echo the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party.

I don’t disagree with these wandering fiscal conservatives in principle. And I certainly don’t deny their freedom to assemble and petition the government in this way. But there’s a big difference between the colonists in Boston and the American population today. The colonists couldn’t vote. They were taxed without representation. We, on the other hand, can vote, but most of us don’t. Not only do our representatives raise our taxes, we raise our own taxes when given the ability to decide directly.

Consider this little pie chart I whipped up based on the last election:

April 7 Sales Tax Referendum Chart

It doesn’t look like many people (in Peoria, anyway) are interested in reining in “out-of-control government spending,” does it? And if anyone feels taxed without representation, there’s a greater than 75% chance it’s their own fault.

The TEA Party participants would see greater results if they could just convince more people to participate at the ballot box rather than downtown marches.

Voting

Did early voting save you time?

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A co-worker of mine recently voted early in an effort to avoid the long lines on election day. As a result, he waited in line over 30 minutes to vote early — longer than he’s ever had to wait to vote in his life (and he’s been voting since the Nixon administration).

So now I’m curious. Those of you who voted early, what was your experience? Was it more convenient? Quicker? Why did you vote early? Did it meet your expectations?

Voting

Some voters getting wrong ballot

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Eyebrows McGee ran into some trouble at the polling place today. She was only allowed to vote in federal races, not local ones. The poll workers didn’t know how to fix it, so essentially, through no fault of her own, Eyebrows was denied her right to vote in local elections.

I’ve e-mailed Tom Bride at the Election Commission asking him about this situation, but as you might expect, he’s a little busy today, so I don’t expect to hear from him any time soon.

On the positive side, this wasn’t an equipment failure, but rather human error. But on the negative side, the problem is reportedly widespread, which means this problem could cause some headaches if the vote is at all close in any of the races today.

UPDATE: I heard from Tom Bride. He said the problem is not system-wide; there are actually only a handful of cases. In each case, it was human error. The judge is supposed to compare the application to the code receipt to make sure they match.

The important thing to remember is this — if you get the wrong ballot, this situation can be corrected provided you haven’t hit “cast ballot” the final time. Once you hit “cast ballot” and get the American flag waving on the screen, it’s like dropping a ballot in the ballot box and you can’t get it back. Any time before that, however, they can void out your ballot and let you start over, including providing you with the proper ballot.

Radio, Voting

Go vote, then listen to WCBU tonight

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The polls are now open! Don’t forget to vote today. For information on voting in Peoria County and the City of Peoria, check out PeoriaVotes.com. You can view a sample ballot, learn how to navigate the electronic voting machine, and find out where the polling place is for your precinct.

I’ll be joining Jonathan Ahl tonight on WCBU 89.9 FM to talk about the election results. NPR will be having wall-to-wall coverage of the national races, while Jonathan and I will be giving updates on local races. Hope you’ll tune in tonight.

City of Peoria, Elections, Voting

Vote Today

Vote today and you’ll get this nifty sticker to proudly display on your lapel.

Once again, here’s a recap of the Peoria Chronicle endorsements:

City Council

  • Gary Sandberg
  • George Jacob
  • Dan Irving
  • Dan Gillette
  • Jim Montelongo

School Board

  • Beth Akeson
  • Rachael Parker

Park Board President

  • Tim Cassidy

Library Referendum

  • Yes
Voting

Vote Today

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Today is a primary election day. I voted this morning at about 8 a.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church which is the polling place for three or four precincts. I was the only one there other than the election judges from the minute I walked in to the minute I walked out. I didn’t pass anyone coming or going, either. That’s pretty sad.

If you’re registered to vote and you haven’t voted already, I encourage you to take the time to go to your polling place and cast a ballot.

City of Peoria, Elections, Peoria County, Voting

Is this a case where city/county cooperation could help?

Jennifer Davis reports in a front-page story today that the city can’t use their fancy new electronic voting machines for the council primary and election because they can’t handle so-called “bullet voting”:

The new electronic voting machines that the city spent millions on last year can’t count cumulative votes at the precincts, which is required by state law.

Peoria has a rather unique style of cumulative voting that only occurs every four years during at-large council elections. Voters can give all five votes to one candidate; or one each to five; or some combination in between. Some say it is that so-called “bullet provision” which makes our cumulative voting unlike any other nationwide.

Before the city and county went to electronic voting machines, they used a paper ballot which was counted with optical scan equipment. The difference between the county and the city, however, was that the county counted the votes at the precinct level — that is, they had counting machines at each polling place — whereas the city took all the ballots to the main election office and counted them all centrally. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires that votes be counted at the precinct level, not centrally.

So, the question I have (and I haven’t called anyone to ask) is what happened to the machines the county used to use? Did they sell them? If they still have them, are they capable of counting cumulative votes? If so, could the city borrow them for their city council election, if there are enough to cover all the polling places?

I just wonder if this is a case where the city’s cooperation with the county would help, instead of having to go to the state to get special legislation passed.

I also wonder why this is just being discovered now, mere months before the city council election. Who dropped the ball on that one? One would think the election commission would have had the ability to count cumulative votes as a basic requirement of any new voting machine they considered; even if they couldn’t find any machines that offered that functionality, why was no back-up plan put in place? Now, all their hopes are pinned on passing emergency legislation.

Peoria County, Voting

Voter turnout low despite “early voting”

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The Journal Star reports today that “Area voter turnout for Tuesday’s election was the lowest in years, with about 47 percent of Tri-County registered voters casting ballots.”

Yet the establishment of “early voting” was supposed to increase voter turnout. Perhaps the expense and extra staffing incurred by the County to offer early voting can be put to some better use in the future.

City of Peoria, Voting

No signature required to vote in Peoria?

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I discovered this morning that there’s a new process in voting. It used to be that the election officials there at the precinct had a book with a page for each registered voter with a digital copy of your signature printed on the page. They would tear out the page, have you verify your address, and sign the sheet. Then they would compare the signatures.

Today, upon walking in, I had to print my name and address on a small pre-printed form, and then show it to the election official, who then verified that I was registered to vote in that precinct. No signature required.

I wonder why they eliminated the signature requirement? It seems like someone with felonious intentions could pretty easily look up registered voters who don’t regularly vote, then walk into those persons’ polling places all over Peoria and cast a vote as that person. Shouldn’t there be some sort of verification that you are who you say you are? I know the signature verification wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

UPDATE: I called the Peoria Election Commission and was told that they were doing it wrong at my precinct. Apparently your signature is required. You’re supposed to sign in the poll book next to your name. They told me they would call my precinct to make sure they’re requiring signatures.

Peoria Journal Star, State of Illinois, Voting

Poll results and the future of polls

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According to the Journal Star’s midday update, the latest poll numbers for governor are as follows:

  • Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) — 44%
  • Judy Barr Topinka (R) — 40%
  • Rich Whitney (G) — 7%
  • Undecided — 9%

The margin of error for this poll (provided by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research) is ±4%, so the front runners are in a “statistical dead heat.”

I got to thinking about these polls…. Peoria County Clerk JoAnn Thomas has stated that 1,500 people have already voted in the county (not including the city) — that’s roughly 3% of the total registered voters in the county (approx. 50,000). If that’s the trend statewide, that’s a significant percentage. In contrast, Mason-Dixon polled 625 “likely voters” out of 7.3 million registered voters in Illinois.

So, the question is, how long do you think it will be before we start seeing polls of early voters instead of likely voters? If there are enough early voters to make the sample statistically diverse enough, couldn’t you just see pollsters calling an election before election day even arrives? I think it’s just a matter of time.