Counties busy preparing for elections

Ballot styles create complications.

By DAVID GRIMES

for The Hawk Eye   06 March 2005

OQUAWKA, Ill. ? Next month's election won't represent the busiest Henderson County Clerk Marcella Cisna has experienced, but it will be one of the more complicated.

"Traditionally the consolidated elections are more complicated than the November general elections," Cisna said.

"But they're not necessarily the busiest. Last November's general election was probably the busiest I've seen due to all the absentee ballots there were to be counted."

Henderson County has 37 ballot styles to be used April 5 by voters from the county's 8 villages, 11 townships and 13 precincts.

Fortunately, the county implemented optical scan voting machines a year ago that should, in their sophomore year, help pre?empt certain challenges at the polls.

Hancock County clerk Kerry Asbridge agrees with Cisna's assessment of consolidated elections being more complicated than busy.

Hancock County just received its voting machines Thursday.

Four two?hour training sessions on the machines for Hancock's 210 election workers are scheduled for Monday at the courthouse in Carthage.

Hancock County voters from four school districts will vote on whether to merge their four high schools into one.

While the convergence issue is an added challenge in ballot construction, Asbridge said issues other than the school merger complicate decisions that will be made at the polls in April.

Other issues such as determining how voters are divided within a particular school district factor into ballot styling.

"The state of Illinois offers a number of ballot styling options based on several factors," Asbridge said.

Hancock County contains nine school districts, six cities, nine villages, 25 townships and 25 precincts.

The high school convergence question ? involving the Carthage, Nauvoo?Colusa, Dallas City and LaHarpe school districts ? is accompanied by an $18 million building bond question and a third question asking voters if they favor a high school convergence should construction of a new high school be delayed for up to three years.

Because passage of the convergence referendum is not yet known, voters in those four districts also will be asked to vote for available school board seats in each of the existing districts, board seats for the new school district should convergence pass, and, if it does, board seats for four new elementary districts that will be formed.

Add to these issues the regular local and county offices that normally appear on the spring ballot and it isn't difficult to see why Hancock County has 87 different ballot styles.

"The sad thing about the consolidated election is that we usually only get about 20 percent of the voters out and this is the election that most affects how their tax dollars will be spent at the local level," Cisna said.