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Study: Illinois' election system needs an overhaul

Posted December 03, 2007 10:00 pm

Bernard Schoenburg

The eight-member, bipartisan Illinois State Board of Elections should be replaced with a nonpartisan elections director, and administration of elections should be more uniform across the state, a new study says.

The study, by researchers at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, found that the biggest problem Illinois has is that the election system, overseen by more than 100 county clerks and other election authorities, "is decentralized with insufficient state-level leadership or guidance," according to Edward Foley of the election law center at the college in Columbus, Ohio.

Foley said in an interview that the selection of a nonpartisan director of elections could be done with recommendations from legislative leaders to a governor, or by a governor with supermajority support - perhaps 75 percent - from both legislative chambers.

"You want a single individual to be able to be identified as the chief elections officer," Foley said, and it would be clear that "the buck stops there."

The director would have to be a respected person - like Alan Greenspan was as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board - and would be able to break ties that can come under a system such as Illinois', with a board of four Republicans and four Democrats appointed by the governor.

"An eight-member board is anonymous in a way that a single person isn't," Foley said.

Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said the study shows the need for a re-evaluation of the election system used in Illinois under the 1970 state Constitution.

"The administration of elections in Illinois is so poorly managed, unevenly funded and open to political influence that the system is a disaster waiting to happen," Canary said in a news release.

Dan White, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said that while there's always room for improvement, the staff is independent, is prohibited from political activity, and performs in a nonpartisan fashion. He disputed the idea that there is gridlock.

"There are four-to-four votes on occasion, but most votes are unanimous," White said.

Sangamon County Clerk Joe Aiello, whose office oversees elections in the county, said he thinks the report and reaction to it is "painting with a broad brush the election process in Illinois as flawed," and he thinks that's wrong.

"We run a good election here," he said.

"Most of the people working out there do do a good job," Canary said, but added that all the county and city election jurisdictions create "a very complicated maze with very uneven resources."

Kent Redfield, professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield and an election-reform advocate, said he thinks a constitutional change to make the secretary of state the top election official would be a way to have someone accountable for fair elections who could also seek adequate funding. He said the people who get appointed to the eight-member board now "tend to be establishment Democrats or Republicans … vested in the current system."

With a secretary of state in charge, he said, "If elections are screwed up, then you have somebody who's accountable" and who could be voted out themselves.

Foley said he doesn't think the top person should be a partisan elected official.

Canary said there would be pros and cons to having a top election official, and one problem with making a constitutional officer that person is "you could get a lousy secretary of state."

Foley said the study, which received funding from the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, also looked at Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota election systems, and has been published in a book called "From Registration to Recount: The Election Ecosystems of Five Midwestern States."

Information on the Web was to be available at www.electionlaw.osu.edu.

Bernard Schoenburg can be reached at (217) 788-1540 or bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.

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