Champaign County Early Voting

No, but I would imagine that most agree with him.

Here's an article on the subject:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/3197721/John-McCains-campaign-ties-Barack-Obama-to-alleged-Acorn-voter-registration-fraud.html

My understanding is that this is fraud, but not voter fraud. I haven't seen any evidence that Dick Tracy has voted in any recent elections. The issue in not anything that would effect any election. It's that an organization to push its workers extorts them with quotas which leads to a small number of them cheating to keep their jobs. It has as much effect on elections as when the kid charged with passing out flyers drops them down the sewer.

Voter registration fraud clogs up the system and costs taxpayers an enormous amount of time in overtime and frustration and confusion in each election authority. I'm shocked that people want to diminish the effect and potential consequences. And to say that ACORN is in front of this issue is ludicrous. They have been caught with thousands of illegal forms to their credit.

Yes, but not registering millions of eligible voters is a larger problem.

But I'm shocked, simply shocked that people want to diminish the effect and potential consequences of millions of certain demographics of  Americans not participating in the process and emphasize some nebulous affect of inefficient voting registration with no systemic malice involved. After all, what does ACORN stand to gain from the Cowboys appearing on a voter registration form?

Let the "if they are too lazy we don't deserve a representative Republic" justifications begin...

"ACORN is not "allowing registration fraud" - they are adhering to the law."

Why is this statement so hard for many to understand?

Anon, what would you know about logic and facts, would you like to try to apply some and respond to my comment maybe?

I think this is my new all-time favorite Run4cvrlib post.  I'm considering replacing my current signature with it.

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At some point we have to trust the government. - redstatewannabe on 2008-06-12 at 1:14pm

My understanding is that State ID numbers and Driver's License numbers are nearly the same, at least in Illinois.  Say your last name starts with "H"; your Driver's License number is H123-4567-8901.  In Illinois, your State ID number would be 123-4567-8901H.  Same number sequence, it just moves the letter to a new position.  This answers Wayward's question, as well as IP's desire for a unique number for each person.  Again, this is my understanding from personal experience, so if someone has better info, please share.

HG

Then completely ignore my post :-)

For what it's worth, what kind of paperwork does your mom need to produce to obtain a state ID?

HG

I'm late to this party, but... the issue is that the US doesn't actually HAVE any form of unified ID.  Countries that do (in the form of family registries, and yes, there are issues), and require people to register with the new municipal unit to update the ID every time they move, don't have separate voter registration because they don't need it.  If you're an official citizen resident of the district, you get to vote.

But in the US, there's no system like that. If it were mandated that all citizens have passports, AND somehow the passport had your current address in it (which they don't) it would be similar to those other country systems.   Drivers' licenses come up, again not everyone has one, some of us have State ID cards (which ARE equivalent for all purposes other than driving) but it's not required that you have one, non-citizens get them, and they don't require you to update the addresses when you move. So, not good.

On a more fundamental level, birth records aren't even standard in the US.  There really IS no form of actual citizen ID.  You can get a passport with a birth certificate, once you've got that it's the best type of ID you can have, but still that doesn't have your address in it.

So, for the time being at least, there will need to be voter registration rolls.  Mind, I'm not saying that HAVING actual real national ID or family registries or anything is a great system either, but it does strike me that some of the "if only..." schemes that come up in the news really only work well under such systems, yet there's other reasons those systems have flaws too.

Are there long lines for early voting?  If so, is there a least busy time of day to come?  I have a grandparent with mobility issues and I'm looking for the best option that will have the least waiting.

People that advocate this should just be honest and admit they are simply trying to boost student voters since they tend to vote for Democrats. I guarantee if they voted for Republicans, we wouldn't hear any crying for greater student access.

Well, there are also the thousands of University employees that are around campus. Compared to Brookens, the U of I campus is more centralized and has superior public-transit access.

We expect long lines throughout the county.  We'll never have early voting at a single location that would discriminate against other areas of the County.  If we do early voting on campus, we'll be doing it in Fisher, Tolono, Homer, and Gifford as well as other parts of Champaign.

Ah, that's a good point regarding the fairness of distribution of county resources. I just figured the Clerk's office would try to accomodate places where are there higher voter registration numbers and voter reg. density.

If we do early voting on campus, we'll be doing it in Fisher, Tolono, Homer, and Gifford as well as other parts of Champaign.

I am sure there is some legal explanation for this logic, but it doesn't make common sense to me.  Campus is home to 40K+ students and faculty - many of whom do not have the appropriate transportion required for driving out to Brookens to vote early.  Towns like Fisher, Tolono, Homer, etc. have a small fraction of that number in the entire town.

If we are concerned about long lines, then I suggest we make it easier to vote early.  Set up booths at the Union.  Set up booths at the mall this weekend.  Do whatever you can to get the voting completed before next Tuesday so you can cut down on the number of people who are disenfranchised because they don't have the luxury of calling in sick for the afternoon to wait in a line to vote.  As it stands right now the systems in this county and across the country seem woefully unprepared for the massive numbers of people who will be voting on Tuesday.  If you already have a 45 minute wait for early voting, what do you think you'll have on Election Day?

If people are not able to vote in this county because the lines are too long then I will call that a crisis for democracy.  And I am not being hyperbolic.  Especially if the folks in Fisher, Homer, Tolono, etc. have more than enough voting booths.

A two hour wait on campus versus no wait in Fisher is not democracy.  You have to apply the resources to where they are most needed.  You have the highest concentration of citizens in this county on campus.  It only makes sense that reasonable steps would be taken to accomodate those numbers.

In other words, if there are three voting booths in Fisher on election day and the wait time is less than a minute, and there are ten voting booths on campus but the wait time is 2-3 hours, then Fisher should have one booth and campus should have twelve.  The wait in Fisher will still be less than on campus, but at least the resources will be appropriately distributed.

First, voting is an individual right.  The theory that some would suggest that we treat an individual in Fisher who travels daily to Bloomington for work after dropping her kids off at day care with less concern than a thousand students is disturbing. 

I'm not sure what polling places people have been in, but we see lines throughout the county.  For some reason, the incidents on campus get all the attention, but you will find little sympathy from people who have to wait in line throughout the county.  Have you been to Fisher?  Three booths?  Are you kidding?  No waiting in Fisher?  Who told you that?  There are over 1000 registered voters there. 

Can the lines get shorter.  Sure.  Hire more judges (we are hiring more this year than any other year, about 60 more than the last presidential election) and pay them more.  It will cost money.  More early voting sites?  Sure.  But with paper ballots, this is extremely expensive.  We're talking about tens of thousands just to have a few sites.  We are just now getting to the point technologically to make it feasible.  Is it worth $100,000 to reduce lines?  I'm not convinced, but I'm open to the idea. 

I'm amazed at the implication that somehow resources are not adequately distributed.  Do you have some basis for that?  Or are you just mimicking the Democratic talking points from the last four general elections?

what is the county policy for taking a child into the voting booth when you vote?

Sorry about the misinformation at the counter.  I just told him what the actual waits are.  Not sure where he got the two hour idea.  Maybe he reads IP.

put that microchip in all citizens, then, in this great wired world, voting and fraud prevention could both be easier  :-)

(10 ILCS 5/17-8) (from Ch. 46, par. 17-8)
    Sec. 17-8. No person other than the election officers and the challengers allowed by law, and those admitted for the purpose of voting as herein provided, shall be permitted within the proximity of the voting booths, (i) except by authority of the election officers to keep order and enforce the law and (ii) except that one or more children under the age of 18 may accompany their parent or guardian into the voting booth as long as a request to do so is made to the election officers and, in the sole discretion of the election officers, the child or children are not likely to disrupt or interfere with the voting process or influence the casting of a vote.

In just another one of my moves to suppress democracy, we don't have any booths that will accommodate families of more than 6. 

Three improvements come to mind---open primary, non-partisan election judges and more early voting places.

Actually, on our list for the future is some PSA type of stuff.  We experimented this year with some election judge clips that went well, but needs some improvement. Other stuff will be coming.

Mark Shelden said:
"First, voting is an individual right."

No, Mark, voting is not first a right. In our system of government voting is an individual duty, the solemn responsibility to participate in the direction of our government; to, if you will, exercise the individual sovereignty upon which our glorious experiment in democratic republicanism is grounded. It is sad that when the last vote is counted in this historic election; when the campaign banners are folded fully half of those of us whose citizenship entitles us to vote will have chosen not to have performed that sacred and patriotic duty.

3 Score + 10

Keith Hays

I was lead to believe an open primary was a primary election in which voters do not need to be or declare membership in a particular policitcal party in order to vote for partisan candidates.  In the State of Illinois, this is not the case for primary elections.  Therefore I have to disagree with your statement IP ----"In Illinois, anyone can show up and vote in any primary election they wish simply by asking for a ballot.  For all practical purposes, that's an Open Primary."

One issue with this is that if you take a primary ballot for Party A, then your signatures to get someone on the ballot for party B might not be counted - or so I was led to believe.

This is an issue for me, as I'm more than thrilled to sign ANYONE's petition to get them on the ballot, even people I'd never actually vote for in a million years, because I firmly believe that "the more the merrier" when it comes to choices on the ballot.  

In general though I agree it's pretty easy to vote in the primaries in IL.