Making history at the ballot box

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Illinois voters are making history today, Tuesday, as the state is holding the earliest congressional primary in midterm years in U.S. history.

Unfortunately, there probably won’t be many voters participating in this historic event.

“We’re estimating a turnout of maybe 25 percent,” Bureau County Clerk Kami Hieronymus said Monday. “Just 25 percent, which is bad.”

Hieronymus is expecting a slightly lower turnout than in previous years, including the 25-26 percent of Bureau County voters who turned out in 2008 to help give Illinois’ Barack Obama the Democratic nomination for president.

Hieronymus is basing her projection on the weather — which has forecasters calling for snow — and the number of early and absentee ballots turned in. She said her office usually sees more than 300 absentee ballots by Election Day, but by Monday, there were only about 260 ballots turned in for both absentee and early voters.

A lack of locally-contested races might also have an impact. Although voters have plenty to choose from in terms of candidates for the U.S. Senate and Congress, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state comptroller and state treasurer, the only contested race locally is between William Rosenow and Joseph Bertetto for the Republican nomination for sheriff.

Regarding the early election date, this is the second time voters are heading to the polls in February. In June 2007, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation moving the Illinois primary election to the first Tuesday in February from the third Tuesday in March. The change was made, according to a press release issued by the governor’s office, to give Illinoisans “a louder voice in the presidential election process.”

Hieronymus wasn’t too pleased with the change in 2008, and her opinion hasn’t changed. She said the earlier primary keeps her staff working harder during the holidays, which is a bad time for campaigning, as well. She also said bad weather, such as today’s predicted snow, can be a problem and can keep voters from turning out to vote.

“I think we’re just taking a big risk, trying to keep the primary in February,” she said.

There aren’t many differences with this year’s primary election, as there are the same number and location of polling places. It is the second time for a Green Party ballot, which was added after candidate Rich Whitney achieved “established party” status for the Green Party in Illinois, thanks to the 10.3 percent of the vote he received as candidate for governor in 2006. Hieronymus said the Green Party ballot in 2008 contained only candidates for president and one congressional district. This year there are 14 candidates on the Green Party ballot.

One change that voters won’t need to deal with is the issue of under voting. On Jan. 23, the BCR ran a letter to the editor warning voters against a new law that ejected ballots that did not have candidates chosen in all of the races. The letter writer warned voters to “tell the poll watcher manning the paper ballot machine that you do not want your ballot screened for under vote.”

Hieronymus said Bureau County voters won’t have their ballots screened for under voting, at least not in this election.

Hieronymus said the law was made to make sure voters know how to complete a ballot by notifying them of races they might have missed. However, the choice to implement the law was left up to each county clerk, and Hieronymus chose to not make the change.

“It just wasn’t tested well and created other issues with the machine,” she said.

Hieronymus has heard from a lot of people who don’t like the law, and she said her hope is the law is changed before the next election.

“People feel they are losing the privacy of the ballot,” she said.

Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. With the projected low turnout, Hieronymus said results could be available as early as 9 p.m., although that won’t be the case if blowing snow slows the return of the voting machines to Princeton tonight.

“But even 10 p.m. would be great,” Hieronymus said.

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