[Peace-discuss] Re: [Prairiegreens] Vote NO on election comission

[John Wason]

Has anyone e-mailed any of this reasoning to Tony Fabri?

John W.


At 04:34 PM 10/22/04 -0500, John Paul Schmit wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I agree with everything Jen and Al wrote here. A couple of other issues  
>as well:
>
>1) An election comission will require the county to hire an elections  
>commissioner and staff. The county already has a budget deficit. What is  
>going to get cut to pay for this?
>
>2) Many people seem to support this as an anti-Mark Shelden thing. Mark  
>Shelden will be on the election commission (as specified by state law).
>
>3) If you think the republicans are doing dirty tricks would you really  
>want the election comission to be in republican hands? Its not like that  
>is impossible.
>
>4) The only county that has an election comission in DuPage County.  
>Despite that there are 40% Democrats in that county, Republicans hold  
>every county board seat and elected county office. This is not going to  
>make election decisions non-partisan or bi-partisan. It will make them  
>MORE partisan.
>
>5) It is also possilbe to stack the election comission with members of all  
>one party if that party holds both the county clerk's office and the  
>majority of county board seats. While the law says you need at least one  
>member of each of the two parties which gained the most votes in the last  
>gubernatorial election (and only those 2 parties, what happened at the  
>county level does not matter). However, to be a member of a party in  
>Illinois, all you have to do is vote in that party's primary. So, if one  
>party was doing well in the county, it could have one of its members vote  
>in the other party's primary, and then that person could be the rep for  
>the other party. That is, the Republicans could have one member vote in  
>the Democratic primary. If Republicans gained a majority of the seats on  
>the county board, then the person who voted in the democratic primary  
>could be appointed the democratic rep, even if they donated and worked for  
>republicans. This may seem far-fetched and convoluted, but if the whole  
>rationale for the election board is to prevent dirty tricks, then this is  
>what you have to think about.
>
>JP
>
>
>On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:13:29 -0500, Walling, Jennifer
<jwalling at law.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>> So this is the piece that Al Weiss and I wrote for the Prairie Greens
>> newsletter last night about the Election Commission.
>>
>> The Prairie Green Party officially opposed the Election Commission at our
>> September meeting.
>>
>> (I'm not on the Peace-Discuss and UCProgressives-discuss list, so please
>> e-mail the Greens list if you have comments)
>>
>>
>> Vote NO on the election commission
>>
>> "Shall a Board of Election Commissioners be established for Champaign
>> County?"
>>
>> The Prairie Green Party asks that you vote no on the referendum regarding
>> the election commission.
>>
>> The election commission would establish a committee comprised of at three
>> members appointed by the County Board.  The public would have no direct
>> input on the selection of members.  Furthermore, the proposed commission
>> would be comprised of at least two people from the majority party on the
>> county board and one from the minority party.  Third party members and
>> independents would be excluded from the election commission by law.
>>
>> If the election commission passes, elections would be run in a smoky back
>> room.  Unelected partisan operatives would completely control who was able
>> to vote, which candidates obtained ballot access, and how the votes were
>> counted.  Committee members would not be accountable to the public for the
>> decisions they made.
>>
>> Our most important right should not be held hostage by unelected partisan
>> operatives.
>>
>> While the County Clerk system is not perfect, it ensures that there is
>> direct accountability to the voters for the running of elections.  We would
>> much prefer that this position remain elected rather than appointed.
>