PEORIA/TAZEWELL COUNTY, Ill. – While central Illinois election officials wish turnout numbers were higher for the consolidated elections, they are taking away some positives.
After Tuesday’s vote, Peoria County reported a turnout of 20%, while Tazewell County reported a 22% turnout.
Peoria County Election Commission Executive Director Elizabeth Gannon says 20% was the goal her office had set for the election. She says that was achieved, even with a short turn around time from the late-February primary elections.
“This really was just a much condensed timeframe for us. So I think that we did a great job of managing that internally, especially with our vote-by-mail ballots, keeping up with them as they came in,” Gannon said.
Counting the remaining vote-by-mail ballots will be the next step in making the results official. Gannon says any ballot postmarked by Election Day and received within the next two weeks will be counted.
The anticipation is that at least 1500 vote-by-mail ballots will be added to the count, which Gannon says could swing a few races. Races with a vote difference of less than 100 after Tuesday night included Alex Carmona and Estrella Diaz in Peoria City Council’s District Two, and Andre Allen and Jamie Messmore in District Four.
Gannon says the results will be certified on April 16th.
Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman says turnout fell short of a goal of 30%. He says it’s “disappointing” when the local races do not get the attention from voters that a general election, which votes for such as President and Congress are made, would have.
Ackerman did note turnout numbers were higher in Washington and Morton, where there were hotly contested races. But he believes having general and consolidated elections so close to each other in Illinois has an impact.
“I do think quite a bit of it is voter exhaustion,” Ackerman said. “They kind of just check out during that period. And that’s something that could be looked at for the future statewide. But here locally, there’s just not much we can do about that.”
One positive Ackerman took away from Tuesday evening is the speed by which the votes were counted. In a Facebook post, he notes tabulations were done just after 9:00 P.M., when in the past, counting would go close to 11:00 P.M.
Ackerman credits an overhaul of Election Day and Night operations for the speedier counting. Measures implemented to help with that include moving tabulation operations from Pekin to a more centralized location in Tremont, in order to reduce long drives by election judges.
Ackerman adds that tasks are also minimized for poll workers and judges, where they do not need to pack everything up after an election. He says county workers pick up equipment the next day during regular hours, which also saves on overtime costs.
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