To give you a general idea of how Republicans here in my home county of Vermilion County, Illinois have a total disdain of Democrats, the Danville Election Commission, which is responsible for administering elections in the city of Danville, refused to send more Democratic primary ballots to a precinct that ran out of Democratic ballots:
Frank Wright, the Democrat Party Chairman in Vermilion County, Illinois has reported that an election judge at the Danville Boys and Girls Club called the Danville Election Commission earlier today to let them know she was running out of Democrat Ballots.
She called twice without any action to deliver more ballots.
The third time, the Election Commission hung up on her, refusing to talk.
The election judge at the polling place named was not named in the report, although she was forced to photocopy ballots so that Democrats who voted later in the day could cast a ballot of their preferred political party.
What happened at the Danville Boys and Girls Club polling place last night is absolutely unacceptable. Election officials in every corner of this country should always prepare for every kind of imaginable high turnout scenario they can think of, as well as high turnout scenarios they can’t think of.
The Danville Boys and Girls Club is the polling location for City of Danville precincts 10 and 13, which are located in the eastern part of my home county’s largest city. I’m guessing that precinct 13 was the one that was short on ballots, as 96 total votes were cast in the Democratic presidential race there, compared to 63 total votes cast in the Democratic presidential race in precinct 10, although that’s just a guess based on election results, so I could be wrong about that.
Also, in case you’re wondering who Danville’s election commissioners are, the current director of the commission is Will Nesbitt, someone who I attended community college with and was formerly either an intern for, or an employee of, Illinois State Rep. Chad Hays (R-Catlin), and the members of the commission are Barb Bailey, Charles Bostic, and Leora Clark. It’s also worth noting that, where I voted (Illinois, Vermilion County, Georgetown Township Precinct 7), I had absolutely zero issues voting, and the elections in Vermilion County outside of Danville are run by a Republican county clerk.
This is the second major controversy involving the Danville Election Commission in less than two years (in the 2014 general election, Danville election officials ran some absentee ballots through a tabulator over a week before Election Day that year). I think that it is once again time to take a serious look at either replacing Danville Election Commission officials or putting the Vermilion County Clerk’s office in charge of elections for the entire county. Elections should be run as smoothly as possible, regardless of the party affiliation of those who are responsible for running elections.
The Progressive Midwesterner 