Not a single voter has turned out. Not a single ballot has been cast. Not a single candidate has been elected. And already, the April 13 Illinois election is one for the history books.
The timeworn routine of local elections is being shattered this year when, for the first time, voters will choose candidates for their school boards along with the boards of villages, libraries and park districts.
State officials ordered the consolidation of the spring municipal and fall school elections in hopes of saving money and increasing voter turnout.
But in the process, they triggered new logistical challenges for local election officials, especially in the populous six-county Chicago region.
Because the boundaries of all these units of local government don’t match up evenly, officials have had to develop a record number of ballots and have adjusted everything from ballot color coding to the training of election judges.
Cook County, for example, has to print 768 ballots, 50 percent more than it normally would need for the spring off-year election. In Lake County, there will be more than 500 ballot variations. In Kane County, where there will be 177 different ballots, even the most seasoned election judges have been told to study their take-home manuals before this week’s training session.
“This is one of the most complex elections ever run in Illinois, there’s no question about that,” said Robert Saar, executive director of the DuPage County Election Commission, which has devised 427 different ballots, also about 50 percent more than it would normally need.
McHenry County Clerk Katherine Schultz hopes to avoid any glitches by printing ballots in a range of styles and colors. There will be 220 McHenry County ballots, each encoded with its own distinct lettering and hue, ranging from plain pink to pink with black stripes to blue with black stripes.
With so many ballot variations, county officials worry about Election Day problems and are preparing for a long night of counting. Yet barring major problems, most election officials still think they will save money by canceling the November elections. And many still hope that turnout for one combined election will be higher than for two elections spaced out over eight months.
State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger (R-Elgin), a sponsor of the legislation that consolidated the elections, said lawmakers were aware that combining the elections would complicate the balloting–a problem that someday may be overcome by a complete switch to electronic voting, he added.
But for this election, he said, “if it doesn’t melt down in Cook County and it doesn’t melt down in DuPage County (the state’s most populous counties), it’ll be fine statewide.”
Though Rauschenberger isn’t convinced that consolidating the spring and fall elections will increase voter turnout–only hotly contested local races or ballot initiatives will do that, he contends– he expects that it will save counties money.
“There’s no question,” he said. “The effect of not having to rent polling places, to hire election judges or to print ballots (in November), there’s no question it will save money.”
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But with more races comes more opportunities for error. The different publishing deadlines for last November’s municipal, library and school referendum proposals, for instance, caused technical errors in McHenry and Lake Counties. A last-minute General Assembly vote was needed to save the measures.
Officials hope nothing similar happens this time. Kane County Clerk Lorraine Sava already has devised her office’s operative phrase for Election Day.
“Accuracy over speed,” she said. “I have an experienced staff, but it’s taken some extra time and some extra caution to make sure everything is covered.”
Like McHenry County, Kane County also has resorted to using stripes as well as colors to differentiate among its many ballots.
In Will County, some of the 334 precincts will have as many as 17 ballots, depending on the exact locations of voters’ homes, said Judy Wiedmeyer, a spokeswoman for the Will County clerk’s office. In many cases, she said, neighbors will be pulling different ballots because they live in different school or park districts.
“There are a few precincts with one ballot,” she said, “but very, very few.”
Despite the additional headaches and expense this spring, many officials still hope that consolidating the spring and fall elections will bring more residents to the polls.
At School District 303 in St. Charles, officials are asking voter permission to open two new schools. The referendum proposal is one of 10 ballot initiatives going before voters in Kane County.
“I think you can get better turnout with fewer elections,” said District 303 spokeswoman Deanne Dresser, “I think people get turned off having to run to the polls all the time.”
In the City of McHenry, where $11 million in state funding for a new high school is at stake, District 156 officials worry that even with the consolidation the local ballot may not be big enough to generate voter interest.
“In our case, there aren’t a lot of races,” said Assistant Supt. Norbert Wolter.
If all of the preparations made by election officials pay off, voters should notice little difference at their precincts. Officials say they’re simply hoping for the best in this debut effort.
“The legislature has already passed the election law,” Kane County’s Sava said. “We’re stuck with it–whether it’s a good idea or not.”