[Peace-discuss] Vote NO on election comission

[John Paul Schmit]

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 repbulicans 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, Repbulicans hold  
every county board seat and elected county office. This is no 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  
gubinatorial 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 Repbulicans 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.
> _______________________________________________
> Prairiegreens mailing list
> Prairiegreens at lists.groogroo.com
> http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/prairiegreens
> http://www.prairienet.org/greens/



-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/