The chair of the Illinois State Board of Elections cast doubt the board would support a pandemic-era statewide mandate to vote by mail in the November election, describing it as a “security nightmare” that would cost tens of millions of dollars.
“I’m sure we’ll get some requests to go entirely vote by mail,” Charles Scholz said at the board’s monthly meeting today. “I don’t see that happening.”
Not only would a mass mailing of ballots to Illinois' 8.5 million registered voters open up the potential for fraud, he said, the cost would be enormous, more than eating up the roughly $13.9 million the state received from the Cares Act—it will be increased to about $16 million in total thanks to a 20 percent state match—intended to help states prepare for potential COVID fallout in November, he said.
Election officials pegged the range of costs for such mailings at anywhere from $2 to $10 per mailing. The overall cost, they estimated, would be $38 million to $40 million to mail every registered voter a ballot and return postage. Other costs would include helping clerks tabulate a potentially exponential increase of ballots of that kind. In Chicago, about 15 percent of the 575,000 ballots successfully cast were by mail in the Mar. 17 primary. More than 117,000 requested mail ballots, with roughly 80 percent returned. Nine percent of those were rejected by election authorities for being returned too late or for other reasons, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Mass voting by mail “just opens the door to vote fraud,” board member William McGuffage said. “It’s just a bad idea. But I think it’s gaining some traction by the people, what I call the good government types . . . but by November we should be pretty much out of the woods on the COVID-19.”
Epidemiologists, including Cook County's COVID response leaders, have already warned of the potential for another rise in COVID cases this fall.
Not even good government types are all-in for all-mail-in voting. Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois and chair of the Just Democracy Coalition, said the groups support a combination of safe in-person voting and expanded voting by mail, with extra attention paid to giving hospitalized, homebound and quarantined voters access to an emergency ballot. He said the state should utilize a universal online ballot request form with the ability to track a ballot online, too.
State legislators would need to approve any mass mailing from the state election board, either with applications to vote by mail or to mail ballots to everyone across the state.
State Sen. Julie Morrison is working on such a bill to mass mail ballots with return postage included, but state lawmakers have not met—virtually or in person—since mid-March. Ballots are more costly than a typical mailing, not only for return postage but because they are specially printed and can vary in size by jurisdiction and have their own special envelopes.
State election board officials suggested their money might be better spent on a public awareness campaign informing voters they could apply for a mail ballot and providing for safer polling places: larger, with cleaning supplies and room to socially distance. Other board members said they wanted to receive input from local election authorities before making any moves. Angela Welsh-Ryan, ISBE’s legislative liaison, said the board had sent out a survey asking how authorities dealt with the coronavirus crisis, which ramped up in earnest just around the state’s primary on Mar. 17.
Chicago’s Board of Elections sparred publicly with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration over whether the primary should have been delayed entirely, as it was in Ohio. One poll worker, a city employee, has died from the virus, and some Chicago voters have been notified of positive cases among those who worked at their polling place.
Overall, election officials reported turnout statewide at 28.36 percent. Not quite a record low, but lower than authorities expected.
Early voting for the November election is scheduled to begin on Sept. 24, and people can begin requesting mail ballots by Aug. 5.
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April 18, 2020 at 04:55AM
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Illinois November election mail-ballots would be expensive security nightmare, officials say - Crain's Chicago Business
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