As Election Day approaches, election administrators around central Illinois are working to ensure the security and integrity of elections during what has shaped up to be a historical race.
Voters across the U.S. have largely reported a positive outlook on elections. According to an Oct. 24 Pew Research report, 92% of registered voters said they believed elections in their local communities would be run and administered at least somewhat well.
But after the controversial elections of 2016 and 2020, the effects of misinformation and election denial have left some voters questioning how their votes will be secured. The Illinois Association of County Clerks and Recorders issued a statement in September representing the 108 IACCR members across Illinois, detailing the role of local election authorities and welcoming citizens in to ask questions and join local election teams.
Have questions about voting? Here’s what to know before Election Day in Illinois
Since 2016, the statement said, questions have been raised concerning the security and results of Illinois elections, assuring voters election officials are only accountable to citizens rather than state or government officials.
“A secure nonviolent democracy is only possible when the citizens have faith in the results of fair, free elections,” the statement read. “We understand trust must be earned, and as such we stand ready to work with each and every one of you to prove the safety and security of our election procedures and policies.”
Election officials in Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties told the Journal Star about how they are working to practice transparency and ensure election integrity ahead of the Nov. 5 Presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
How do I know if my vote is safe?
Elizabeth Gannon, Executive Director of the Peoria County Election Commission, said one significant aspect of election security is sealing and tracking voting equipment.
Before voting begins, election commissions must run a public test to ensure voting equipment and tabulating software are running accurately. The test is open to the public and simulates election day by creating a test deck that gives every contest and candidate a vote. If the test comes back with mistakes, the election commission knows it was simply human error.
Like a ballot envelope, each piece of voting equipment has a unique serial number on it. All equipment is sealed by the election commission before it leaves the warehouse, Gannon said, and the serial number, seal number and destination are loaded into a master database.
“When the polls close, they record those serial numbers again, showing that the equipment we started with is the equipment that we’re ending with, and all of our serial numbers match,” Gannon said. “We do not cut any seals or tabulate any votes until we can ensure that those serial numbers match.”
Where is my polling place? What to know about voting on Election Day in Illinois
During the 2022 election, election judges at one polling place cut the seal that keeps election data secure in the database, rather than the seal they were supposed to cut — the one on the ballot box itself.
“So we could not ensure that USB had not been tampered with, so we were not going to tabulate that polling place from that USB because that seal had been broken,” Gannon said.
But there are backups in place when issues like those occur. Instead of tabulating from the machine, Gannon said, the election commission tallied the paper votes from the polling location where the mistake occurred, similar to how vote-by-mail ballots are counted.
“We were still able to get our results out that night and still ensure the integrity of the election,” she said.
Election transparency: Illinois officials explain the process
County clerks and local election authorities have bolstered efforts to be transparent and open to questions and conversations with the public. Tazewell County clerk John Ackerman says this looks like inviting the public to take tours of the building to see how election equipment operates or to have one-on-one discussions with election officials.
While the information was always available, Ackerman said, in the past, managing the election was the priority. Change comes in proactively engaging the public rather than waiting for questions, he said.
“Now, in addition to managing the election, we also need to take the time to make sure that we are responding to citizens’ questions, answering them, showing them just why this election is safe and secure,” he said. “It’s one thing to tell people it is. It’s another to take the time to show them — to respond to questions they have and prove that this process works.”
Woodford County clerk and recorder Dawn L. Kupfer said her office has been spending a great deal of time talking with voters to assure them her office is doing everything it can to protect election integrity.
Not everyone she speaks to feels that their vote will be secure in the mail, she said, so the county provides designated drop-boxes inside the courthouse in Eureka, where they can place their ballots.
“When the people of Woodford County say they do not trust the elections here in Woodford,” she said, “I take it very personally.”
How can I check the status of my mail ballot?
In Tazewell County, voters for the first time can track their ballot from when it’s first printed by the election office to when it’s completed and sent back. McLean County is also offering ballot tracking for the first time.
This year, Ackerman said, mail ballots have a perforated section at the bottom that must be ripped off before the ballot will fit in the return envelope. This section includes a QR code at the bottom voters can scan before they send back their ballots, allowing them a step-by-step look at the postage process and showing when their ballot has been fully processed. For voters who aren’t as familiar with QR codes, there’s also a website address.
Ackerman said his office has seen a dramatic increase in use of that service, helping residents “know their vote was received and was processed appropriately,” he said.
To instill the new technology, the county partnered with KNOWiNK, a Missouri-based company that prints and mails ballots. The new process not only safeguards the ballots, but it saves money, too; where before the county spent $20,000 mailing ballots using first-class postage, using KNOWiNK’s bulk mail service brings the price down to just around $2,000.
Votes will still be opened and counted in Ackerman’s office, and having a new vendor keeps the county from charging taxpayers for mail ballot production, he said.
“Previously, the postage alone would have cost Tazewell County taxpayers $16,643,” he said. “Now, using this new vendor service, the cost is $1,602 – a savings of $15,041 just on postage, and still at an early part of the process. Savings will only increase as we go along.”
Election misinformation: ‘Gosh, is this real or not?’
Peoria County’s Gannon urges voters to make the election authority their top source for information rather than social media or word of mouth.
“There have been a lot of text messages, phone calls, things on social media that are just not accurate and obviously that sows doubt,” she said. “I think it’s just so important that, if you question anything as a voter and you see something and you don’t know if this is true or you don’t know if it’s accurate, call your local election authority.”
She recalled a recent social media post in which people who had undergone poll worker training warned voters their ballot will be invalidated if anyone besides them marks it. This is incorrect. Illinois election law states every ballot must be initialed by an election judge to certify it before handing it off to a voter. The Illinois State Board of Elections issued a fact-check in a post on X, clarifying election judges marking ballots before voting is, in fact, legal and necessary.
Some voters have also received text messages from outside organizations alerting them someone in their household has not yet voted, even if they have, Gannon said. Sometimes the organizations sending these messages are nonprofits, while other messages contain links that lead to fake sites. The confusion has left some voters Gannon interacts with questioning whether their vote was received and counted.
“I think it can happen to anybody,” Gannon said. “You know, you get spam in your email all the time and it’s like, gosh, is this real or not? At least you’re questioning it, right?”
Voter purging has emerged as a concern this election cycle, with Virginia facing controversy since August for removing more than 1,600 voters from the state’s registration system just 90 days before the election. Similar issues have arisen in Alabama and Texas, where voter advocacy groups have questioned the validity of voter purges that could have mistakenly eliminated eligible naturalized citizens.
To avoid mistakes and keep voter rolls up to date, Gannon said her office follows federal law that requires election authorities to mail new voter registration cards out every two years to all registered voters. If the cards come back to the office as undeliverable — or if a person has not voted in the past two general elections — the voter’s registration is made inactive.
But inactive doesn’t mean canceled, Gannon said. If a person marked inactive presents proper identification to the election authority, they can restore their status.
Election 2024 officials ‘encouraged by the turnout’
Ackerman said the combination of nice weather, the convenience of mail-in and early voting and a historical presidential election is causing voters to turn up to the polls more and more each year.
Overall, Ackerman said, voters have been positive and engaged, asking questions calmly and civilly. They’re also treating Tazewell County election judges and poll workers with more respect, which he said he thinks is a result of the increased transparency efforts. Many poll workers are volunteers, he said, which makes them feel approachable in a system that can be confusing and intimidating.
“The individuals that are counting the votes here in Tazewell County go to the same supermarkets, shop the same stores,” he said. “It’s not some distant bureaucrat in some centralized state office doing this, but other individuals you voted for, you elected, you put in place and ones you can hold responsible.”
Gannon agreed, and said her office is averaging around 500 voters per day during the early-voting period.
“Overall, it’s been really just a calm process,” she said. “Everyone just wants to get their vote in and recognizes the importance of the voting process. Your voice really starts at the ballot box, and so I’m encouraged by the turnout we’re seeing and I really just hope it continues through election day.”
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Illinois election integrity: How mail-in votes, ballots stay safe on Nov. 5
