From Lakewood Village Trustee Paul Serwatka about voting problems:
I have received several calls now, reporting that residents are voting and our Lakewood Property Tax Referendum is NOT on their ballot.
They are reporting that family members from within the same address/household are receiving different ballots. Some members within the household are receiving ballots with our referendum while others are receiving ballots with the Crystal lake Library referendum.
This seems to be happening particularly more often for those voting at Glacier Ridge School
If your ballot includes a referendum regarding the Crystal Lake Library – you have been given the wrong ballot! Some election judges will be more knowledgeable about this than others.
You can ask for your sample ballot before you vote. If you have the correct ballot, there will be 3 referenda:
1. Illinois “Safe Roads” addendum
2. Reducing the number of county board members
3. Our Lakewood Property Tax Referendum
There can only be three referenda.
Again, you can ask for a sample ballot prior to actually voting.
If your ballot has a question regarding the Crystal Lake Library – You have been given the wrong ballot!
PLEASE speak to your election judge PRIOR to finalizing your vote or it will be too late!
Please let me know if you have any problems.
Thank you for your help! and THANK YOU to those who have taken the time to give us updates!
Paul, I was at Glacier Ridge School at 5:30 am and learned around 8:00 am that some of the Grafton 21 registered voters (17) checked in at Grafton 31 precinct.
The judges did not notice that these 17 voters were from Grafton 21 and mistakenly handed them the paper ballot for Grafton 31.
The voters then voted and submitted that ballot without having it corrected prior to having it officially entered as a returned ballot.
So the voters had a chance to vote on the library referendum
Voters did not see Lakewood referendum
Lastly, the wrong County Board District was on the ballot, CB2 instead of CB5
I don’t know what the final determination of this error will be, but it’s going to be difficult to get the voters back to the poll.
That being said…the voters can be identified since their ballot request slips are at the Grafton 31 table.
This ballot mixup could happen at any polling location where there are multiple precincts with different ballot types.
The judges must stay on top of these details, review, review, review, and if they don’t catch it…then the voters must stop and ask questions.
Short of this…there are no other catches that I’m aware of.
Once again, the County Clerk’s office should be documenting and tracking problems for reporting and improvement purposes.
So are we going to read about this in a County Clerk someday, or do we just have to be thankful it was reported by the blog so we know this happened.
So are we going to read about this in a County Clerk report someday, or do we just have to be thankful it was reported by the blog so we know this happened.
A good sample ballot mailed to voters could possibly have helped the unfortunate situation.
These errors were found at 3 polling locations and reports of at least 2 more during early voting.
But, I have to say that the Elction Judges were pretty greast about it, particularly the judges at Glacier Ridge Elementary School.
And an early call into Mary McLellen and she was “johhny-on-the-spot” to get it the issue resolved!
Again a call for her CC termination should be persued!
she is il-equipped to handle this position at all…
wake up people..!
call for her resignation.