Tom Kacich: Dearth of election judges bodes ill for November

Apr. 7—One election down; another, bigger one just seven months away.

And Champaign County Clerk and Recorder Aaron Ammons is already worried about not having enough election judges to staff a full complement of 66 polling places for the general election.

It was enough of a problem for the just-completed primary that 15 voting centers — eight in Champaign-Urbana and the rest scattered around the county — weren't opened.

"I'm extremely concerned about the fall election because of what led to 15 closures when we only need three election judges at each polling location. We're going to need five at a minimum, if not more, at some of the busier locations for November," Ammons said. "So if we do not have a tremendous increase from Democrats and Republicans, we could be looking at more closures, which will lead to long (voter) lines and a lot of frustration. We're going to have to have a Herculean effort to get the judges that we need trained and ready to go for November."

Ammons estimates he'll need about 400 election judges to fully staff the Nov. 5 general election.

"The first problem is that people seem to think — and I may have contributed to this because I have been working so hard to get election judges — that it is the job of the county clerk to get election judges, when in reality, the first line is the two major parties," he said. "They are supposed to recruit election judges and give us a list of judges, and then we turn them over to get them commissioned."

Republican officials, Ammons said, have not given us "a thorough and robust list" of GOP election judges. Democrats have done just enough, he said.

"We've gone above and beyond to try to find election judges," he said. "Democrats were one over this (primary election), more than what we needed. But the Republicans were like 49 short. That's why we had to close polling locations."

Champaign County Republican Party Chair Jim McGuire acknowledged the shortfall but said that it's a tough job and Ammons hasn't been fully cooperative either.

"What I have suggested is to change the law for Election Day so that they can make it easier to get election judges by allowing them to work maybe four hours instead of a full day," McGuire said. "Two things have happened at the same time: People who really know how to do it have gotten older, and they can't work 16 hours."

Election judges do work a long day, typically starting at 5 a.m. and leaving around 8:30 p.m. or later. (Polls are open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.)

For that they are paid $220, and get no additional money for the four hours or more of training they must take.

"I received an email the other day from an election judge who served and said he did all the math and that it was about a 16.5-hour day, and when he did all the math, it boiled down to something like $9.33 an hour," Ammons said. "It's absolutely absurd that we would think that we would know how important election judges are to our election process and not provide them a wage that would incentivize people to come and serve."

McGuire said he's talked to Ammons about the shortage of Republican judges.

"I told him we have been trying hard to find election judges but we have a problem, because people will sign up on the website to be trained and they won't be called, or they were sent a letter that if you're too old to work on a computer, you probably should not be an election judge," McGuire said. "We've even had Democratic election judges complain because they were shifted from one location to someplace where they're not comfortable doing it."

Long term, Ammons said, the solution is more voting by mail. About 42 percent of voters in Champaign County cast their ballots by mail in the recent primary. The more votes cast by mail, the fewer election judges — and associated polling place costs — needed.

"Ultimately, it's the reduction in the number of pieces of equipment you would need and then to purchase new ones when they become obsolete," Ammons said. "The reduction of polling locations means we would not have to spend as much on all those devices — the tabulators; the ExpressVote machine, which is for people with disabilities; the laptops; the printers; the booths; and distributing all of that to polling places. That would create tremendous efficiency, and that is long term."

McGuire said he's not opposed to voting by mail but is opposed to legislation under consideration in Springfield — sponsored by Ammons' wife, state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana — to allow county clerks to send vote-by-mail ballots to all registered voters, whether they want them or not. Clerks are currently allowed to send voters applications to vote by mail. Aaron Ammons said he favors the legislation and would use it because of the expected cost savings.

McGuire said he has at least two concerns.

"I don't support it because we have about 107,000 registered voters, and every one of them would be receiving an actual ballot," he said. "I have great concerns about the chain of custody of those ballots if that happens. I'm against that.

"The other thing that would throw a wrench into vote by mail is if they change the (U.S. Postal Dervice) distribution center here, all the ballots would be going to Chicago. I think that's where they have election fraud, up in Chicago. So I don't really want my ballots sent to Chicago."

Official primary results

Now that the 2024 primary election results in Champaign County are official:

* Voter turnout was 17.45 percent. That's the lowest in a presidential election year in more than 40 years but was to be expected given the lack of competitive races in both parties. There were more Democrat ballots (10,796) cast in the county than Republican ones (8,047).

* Democrats dominated the vote in 76 of the county's 118 precincts, including all 62 in Champaign-Urbana. In Urbana's Cunningham 3 (around Krannert Center for the Performing Arts), Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans, 27-0. The best Republican precinct was Brown Foosland in the northwest corner of the county, where there were 29 Republican voters to two Democrats.

* Champaign voters selected Democratic ballots by a margin of 4,708 to 1,733. In Urbana, Democratic ballots were favored 2,736 to 537. Outside of the cities, Republican ballots were dominant, 5,777 to 3,352. The five Mahomet precincts — which include the village and surrounding areas — remain steadfastly Republican by a margin of 1,036 to 553.

* In the Republican write-in race for the 102nd Illinois House District, Ogden Village President and retired St. Joseph-Ogden Superintendent Jim Acklin defeated incumbent state Rep. Adam Niemerg of Effingham County, 444 to 269. But Champaign appears to be the only county Acklin won in the 11-county district. He lost Edgar County, where it was thought he had a chance because he is interim superintendent of the Chrisman school district there. Niemerg took Edgar County, however, 667 to 517.

* Former President Donald Trump got about 71 percent of the Republican presidential vote with 5,765 votes to 1,664 for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The rest of the Republican vote went either to other candidates (425), write-in candidates (81) or people who left that line blank (110). On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden got about 85 percent of the vote (9,207). There also were 480 write-in votes, 763 for three other listed candidates and 340 Democrats who voted for no one.

* There were lots of undervotes in the county — races where voters didn't like the choice in an uncontested race and declined to cast a vote. Among Democrats, 801 voters out of 5,563 taking a ballot (about 14.4 percent) didn't vote for Carol Ammons. Similarly, unopposed county Auditor George Danos didn't get the vote of 1,231 of the 10,771 Democrats voting (about 11.4 percent). Among Republicans, 517 of the 3,730 voters eligible (or about 13.8 percent) didn't vote for incumbent U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Hindsboro, who had no opponent.

* Overall, Election Day voting proved to be the most popular method of casting a ballot (8,296), slightly more than voting by mail (7,838) and significantly more than early voting in person (2,709). But among Democrats, voting by mail was the big winner (6,046) over Election Day (3,350) and early voting (1,400). Republicans went big for Election Day voting (4,946), followed by voting by mail (1,792) and early voting (1,309).