Illinois Soldiers Wait for Ballots. Prisoners Get Hand Delivery.

UPDATE: 10-20-10

Fox News

Illinois Absentee Voters Only Get One-day Extension

by Mike Tobin | October 20, 2010

"It's a disgrace," said Beverly Perlson of the group Band of Mothers when she learned that soldiers from Illinois were only going to get a one-day extension on the deadline to get their absentee ballots postmarked, despite them being printed and mailed as much as two weeks late.

"These guys are fighting, dying and losing limbs on the battlefield. How do you think this makes them feel?" She shouted rhetorically.

Representatives of the Department of Justice met with representatives from the State of Illinois, the Illinois State Board of Elections and, according to a source, representatives of The Illinois Attorney General. They produced a consent decree which extends the deadline for the postmark on absentee ballots from November 1 to November 2. This in the face of 35 Illinois counties failing to mail their absentee ballots 45 days ahead of the election as mandated by the 2009 Military Overseas
Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE).

The State Board of Elections reports that 2,665 ballots were mailed late. More than 1,200 of those are from St. Clair County, home of Scott Air Force Base. The ballots were printed late due to a court challenge, because a third party wanted to get on the ballot. The counties did not want to incur the expense of printing and mailing, only to cause confusion if they needed to print and mail a second ballot. So, they missed the September 18th deadline to get the ballots out to absentee voters, a group that includes fighting men and women overseas.

The Illinois Republican Party will file a motion to intervene as early as Thursday. The intervention
will call on equal protection actions; that each citizen has a fair an equal amount of time to vote.

They will also recognize the 45 day mandate under the MOVE act and call on Illinois election code, which grants an additional 14 days to count the ballots."The message we want to send, is that there are people back here who care," said Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party. "We will get this taken care of."

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/20/illinois-absentee-voters-only-get-one-day-extension-0#ixzz12w1wKvDY

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Big Government

by Capitol Confidential

Over 35 counties in Illinois missed the deadline to mail military ballots to our soldiers defending America. But in Chicago, county election officials have taken special steps to ensure that no inmates at the Cook County Jail are unable to cast a ballot.

The Chicago Board of Elections hand delivers ballots to the jail. They don’t even wait for the inmates to apply – they bring the applications with the ballots! Over 2,600 inmates have cast ballots so far – strikingly similiar to the 2,600 soldiers who will likely not recieve a ballot for the Nov 2 election.

Disgraceful does not begin to describe the Illinois Election system.

[2pkolocb5zjdh]

Is it only the Damncratic states that have failed to send them?????

[3m86zniyxkd4y]

The truth is that Chicago followed the law and emailed, faxed and mailed ballots to military and civilians overseas Sept. 3, more than two weeks before the federal deadline.

http://www.chicagoelections.com/page.php?id=57

http://www.chicagoelections.com/dm/news_releases/...

The Chicago Election Board not only led the lobbying to change state law to allow military and other overseas ballots to be accepted up to two weeks after Election Day, but also has led the way in lobbying for future changes to allow military and civilians overseas to return their ballots by fax and secured that allowance in a Special Election in 2009 in Federal Court:
http://www.chicagoelections.com/dm/news_releases/...

We share the concerns of protecting and preserving the voting rights of the troops, and we take this awesome responsibility very seriously.

Regards,
Jim Allen
Chicago Election Board

[Lawrence Yarborough]

Jim Allen Chicago Election Board.Youre title explains youre attempt to missinform the people of this site.

[3m86zniyxkd4y]

Chicago mailed the ballots to the troops two weeks ahead of the deadline. Chicago is NOT one of the jurisdictions that was late. You may verify this with any of the organizations involved, including the Pentagon's FVAP, with whom we work very closely.

[13xmt4y6syj8r]

Twana, I hope Jim is right and you are wrong because I would give up MY right to vote to let a member of the service have a vote. That said, it sounds like Jim is claiming Chicago mailed the ballots in time. Did you see anywhere which counties were the 6 that failed to mail ballots in time?

[Lawrence Yarborough]

I dont think Jim has the documentation.

[3m86zniyxkd4y]

Here are the official results of the Illinois State Board of Elections/Department of Justice survey to identify which jurisdictions were late. Chicago was not late.

G2010-DOJ-SurveyMilitaryBallots-ISBE.2.xlsx

G2010-DOJ-SurveyMilitaryBallots-ISBE.2.pdf