Illinois hits one-day COVID-19 testing high and passes 5 million tests since pandemic began; state elections board OKs $4 million for extra drop boxes, poll worker recruitment

Illinois set a new one-day statewide testing high for COVID-19 over the weekend and is now averaging 52,000 tests per day, third highest in the nation, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday.

The 74,286 tests during a 24-hour period reported on Saturday, a new high, pushed Illinois past 5 million tests over the course of the pandemic.

During a news conference in Springfield, Pritzker lauded the state’s testing program as “by far the best testing state in the Midwest,” and one of the fastest states in delivering test results.

Officials on Monday reported 1,477 newly diagnosed cases and seven additional deaths of people with COVID-19, raising the statewide tally to 275,735 known cases and 8,457 deaths.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike acknowledged there are some health care providers and hospital systems that impose criteria for testing that can limit access, including a requirement that the person being tested has symptoms.

“We are reaching out and asking that these providers remove these barriers” and open up testing by joining the department’s network of lab providers, Ezike said

Also on Monday, the Illinois State Board of Elections unanimously approved a request from Pritzker to reallocate up to $4 million in federal election security funding to help local election authorities pay for additional drop boxes to collect absentee ballots and to recruit additional poll workers.

The $4 million would come from the $27.1 million the elections board received in federal election security grants through the Help America Vote Act for 2018 and 2020. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has issued guidance authorizing such uses.

The additional funding would become available once local election authorities use up the $16.8 million in funding from the federal coronavirus relief package approved earlier this year. State election officials said the additional money most likely will be shifted from funds that were dedicated to upgrading the state’s voter registration system.

“We know we still have to do that. … That’s not going away,” State Board of Elections Chairman Charles Scholz said. “We’ll just have to replenish and work with the governor and the General Assembly and perhaps the federal authorities.”

The board will consider requests for reimbursement from the state’s 108 local election authorities on a case-by-case basis, Scholz said.

Pritzker signed a law in June that aims to expand voting by mail for the November election to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 at crowded polling places. One provision allows local election authorities to set up secure collection sites for people who don’t want to send their ballots through the U.S. mail.

However, citing a recent survey by the elections board, Pritzker said only half of the state’s 108 local election authorities plan to offer ballot drop boxes. And 60 of the local jurisdictions report they are having trouble recruiting enough election judges to work the polls Nov. 3.

With the additional funding, election authorities would be able to purchase more drop boxes and increase pay for election judges, among other things.

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