As they approved pay increases for election judges, Will County officials said they hope to change a state law allowing primary day voter registration in all precincts.
Tuesday’s primary was the first time Will County offered registration in all of its 300 precincts, using new electronic poll books, and as County Clerk Nancy Schultz Voots feared it created long lines at some polling places, prompting some potential voters to leave without casting a ballot.
“People who were registered turned away,” when they saw the lines, she said during Thursday’s county board meeting.
Despite her efforts to send mailings urging the county’s 396,560 registered voters to use mail-in ballots or vote early, several county board members reported lines throughout the county. The overall turnout for Tuesday’s primary was 43.6 percent in Will County.
The new law also extended early voting to the day before the election, and changed the required postmark date for mail ballots to primary day rather than the day before.
According to the county clerk’s website, 152,176 people voted on Election Day, 13,889 people voted early and 5,925 voted by mail. On March 29, the clerk’s staff will count 1,691 mail-in ballots that were received after Monday night, plus 514 provisional ballots — those that came into question. Another 1,126 ballots were requested by mail, but have not yet been returned.
Voots has yet to determine how many people registered on primary day. When it was offered in the November election at five sites, about 700 people registered.
She has opposed the law requiring registration in all precincts, saying it is “not needed.”
Even though the polls closed at 7 p.m. Voots said anyone who was in line at that time was still allowed to vote.
“The election judges did an extraordinary job,” said county board speaker Jim Moustis, R-Frankfort Township, who visited several polling places on Election Day. “But if the law was intended to get more people to vote, it didn’t work. People walked out,” he said.
“It was a tough election. There were a lot of curve balls thrown at the judges, who did a great job,” said board member Bob Howard, D-Beecher. Many judges are senior citizens who are not comfortable with new technology, he said later.
“We have to go back to the state and change the law. The lines were problematic,” said board member Chuck Maher, R-Naperville.
Voots suggested having one voter registration site in each of the county’s 24 townships on the day of elections, and possibly two in the larger townships.
She told the board she lost election judges because they did not want to deal with the new electronic poll books which were used to verify addresses and determine whether a voter was registered elsewhere.
By allowing registration on the day of elections, the state is “putting more responsibility on election judges,” Voots said, which is why she sought a $15 increase in their pay for training, from $45 to $60. They will also receive $90 for working on primary day.
