(bright music) (bright music continues) - Election integrity.

In addition to making sure the voting process is fair and easy, election officials also have to worry about misinformation, safety, and more.

We're joined tonight by Elizabeth Gannon, the Executive Director of the Peoria County Election Commission, and John Ackerman, the Tazewell County clerk.

And boy, November isn't here yet, but voting by mail starts September 26th.

- Yes it does.

- Just a few days away.

The general election, November 5th.

Now you all held a press conference a few weeks ago, which was kind of unusual, having people representing Tazewell, Peoria, McClean Counties, talking about the election.

Why did you feel the need to call that, and what points did you wanna get across to folks?

- Well, I think while it may appear unusual to the general public, you would find that it's not unusual for us to actively communicate with each other.

We face the same issues, the same problems, trying to find the same solutions, so we communicate actively amongst each other for best practices, for best policies and procedures to be implemented, and just to give each other words of encouragement and help relieve the stress of the day as we move into this process.

So for us to communicate with each other, it happens extraordinarily frequently.

The purpose of the press conference was this is an effort going on throughout the entire state of Illinois to be on the proactive side of getting out there and informing the public, what are our procedures and policies?

How do we safeguard our election process?

There are 108 of us in the state of Illinois, local election authorities, that own this process within our jurisdiction, and we take great pride in the safety and security of the vote within our jurisdiction.

So we all have a little ownership in making sure that this is done accurately, done in a timely manner, and done with the public having full trust that they can believe in this process, believe in our democracy.

- Well it seems like in the last, I don't know, eight years or so, we've had lot of new things come up, like misinformation on social media, recounting ballots, things like that.

How do you feel this year?

Are things any better than they were four or eight years ago in terms of the misinformation that's out there and things like that?

- I don't.

I think that it just continues to ramp up.

This year, we also have AI to contend with, so there are, we are continuing to try to come up with ways to educate our populations to let them know that no matter what you see, what you hear, your election authority is your number one source for up to date accurate information, and we are the ones that you need to go to.

- Can you both gives us some examples of things that may be out there, even in the past on social media, that may have confused voters, or if not confused them, kind of pushed them towards one direction or the other?

- I think a big one that came up right at the time of our press conference that we had taken care of was, there was a social media post that was going around saying, "A friend of mine just took election judge training, "and if anybody marks on your ballot, "that's how they're going to eliminate your vote later on.

"Don't let anybody ever mark on your ballot."

Well, it was completely fictitious.

Here in the state of Illinois, election judges are required to initial your ballot, each and every ballot, and that's what, that's part of the process where they're saying we validate that that is a legal vote to be counted, so if they didn't mark on your ballot, your vote could be tossed out.

So just the opposite of what they were implying is what the reality really was.

Luckily, we brought it to the attention of the State Board of Elections.

State Board of Elections sent out the communication to all counties, here's how we're gonna be responding to this, here's a social media post you can share, and again, that cooperation and collaboration between all of us, we all actively took advantage of that chance to put down that bit of misinformation.

I would say, when you asked the question, what's changed?

I'd say our attitude as local election authorities has changed.

I think eight years ago, we sat a little bit too long on our hands as this was starting to happen, because we just hadn't seen those type of personal attacks against our offices before.

Now, we are being more aggressive, and when we see something, we're going to respond to it.

We're going to try to mitigate that damage that's being done, and to explain to people that we are the trusted source of information.

So I think the difference would be the elected officials that are in place now taking a more proactive rather than reactive approach of engaging the public, and making sure that they're aware of who we are, what we do, and how we are safeguarding democracy.

- And can your offices do anything, when you see a post like that, is there anything you can do about it other than to tell people, no, that's false?

- We always, when we see misinformation, disinformation, out there, the state of Illinois has a program in place where we can reach out to them and report these instances, and then they can take care of it at more of the state or the federal level, so it takes that responsibility out of our hands.

But we just really need to make sure that we're staying on top of it, turning that information in, and try to get accurate information out to the public.

- And I think people would be interested in knowing what you all are doing or have done to make sure that the voting process is as secure as possible so people don't think that there was any shenanigans going on with the vote.

Can you tell us, we'll start with you Elizabeth.

- [Elizabeth] Sure.

- About some of the procedures that Peoria County uses?

- Sure.

So I think, not just Peoria County, but all the state of Illinois, when you have voting equipment, that voting equipment has to be certified at both the state and the federal level, so it has gone through strenuous testing to ensure that it's meeting those state and federal requirements before we can even purchase that equipment.

And so we have gotten a certain amount of a certain equipment in Peoria County.

We use Hart Verity voting system.

It's a paper based system.

But also, a really big safeguard that's in place that a lot of people don't know about, which is actually open to the public, it's called the Public Test, and every election jurisdiction has to complete a Public Test before voting, and it's really just a way to ensure that the votes are being tabulated the way they're intended, right?

So we have a set test deck that we are voting, and then we are tabulating those votes and making sure that they're being counted accurately, so that is one big safeguard that we have in place.

Now, on election night, before I can tabulate any official results, I have to run the Public Test again to ensure that before I start the Public Test, the tabulation system is still counting the votes the way they're intended, and then I tabulate all the votes that are coming in on election night, and then when I'm done, guess what?

I have to run the Public Test again to ensure that it is still tabulating the way it's intended to.

So that's a really big safeguard that we have in place.

And like I said, that Public Test is open to the public.

Anybody is able to come in and watch that process.

- John, anything you wanna add to that?

- Well we actually livestream the Public Test, because we want it to be able to be for the public to watch it.

I would say that the biggest thing I think we do is transparency.

Come take a look.

You got questions?

Come ask 'em.

We want you to.

We wanna engage with you on this conversation.

We want you to be able to see everything and understand how, what issues that you're seeing, we want you to be able to answer them so that you have the chance to walk away with confidence in our system.

So yeah, going from livestreaming to having frequent meetings with the media where we explain and answer questions of the moment that are out there.

We try to be as open and as transparent as we can be, and make sure that everybody can have everything that they want to have responded to.

- Sure.

What are some of the things, and again, I'll ask this to both of you, what are some of the things that people tend to get confused about.

Forget misinformation, and everything like that, even 20 years ago, what did people get confused about in terms of the voting process, and how do you clear up any confusion or misconceptions?

- Yeah, I'll take that one first.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, a big one is I received a ballot in the mail.

Okay, you didn't.

You received an application for a vote by mail ballot in the mail, so not only can the election authority provide applications, which is just I say, this is my name, this is my address, and I am requesting that you mail me a ballot for this election.

That can come from outside sources as well.

Candidates, parties.

They can send you applications for vote by mail.

That is not an official ballot.

No one is mailed a ballot unless an application is completed first.

So there is a disconnect there between how do I get this ballot, what is this that I've got in the mail, so I would say that's a big one that we get calls a lot.

How about you?

- I'd say that believing that what they read online that took place somewhere else could take place here.

Not understanding, we're trying to have a national conversation about election integrity and voting.

When we can't do that because it's being done 50 different ways, and in the state of Illinois, it's being done 108 different ways.

There are 108 different election authorities.

And I think that's the part that they misunderstand.

I see frequently, "I wish all votes were on paper."

All votes have been on paper in the state of Illinois for over three decades, probably even longer than that.

So what are you looking for?

"Well, I wanna see the paper."

All that paper's held for four years by your election authority.

Anybody can come in and have a judge ask to have those reviewed.

It's materials that are kept.

"Should be audited."

We do a sample audit, a sample review of it.

You can answer these.

The best one I have is the, "I wish there was a barcode.

"You can track money, why can't," guess what?

There's a barcode on your ballot that prevents another ballot from going through that tabulation equipment.

It's also weight sensitive, so if you try to copy just the ballot, there's the security seals, there's weight on there.

There's so many safeguards that are in place, but people see that and then jump.

"Yeah, there's a barcode on money, serial code, "we should be able to track," you can track a ballot.

You can have that done.

It's already in place.

It's somewhat humorous when I see that, but especially if they ask you for it, if only you knew that it's already there, and it's where you can see it.

It's visible.

So it's, trying to have that national conversation is just not possible.

Try to have it with your local election authority.

Try to find out what rules are in place within your jurisdiction.

See what's taking place at your local level.

And in the state of Illinois, we're blessed to have that local control.

There's nobody counting ballots, or counting votes, anywhere other than my election tabulation facility in Tremont on election night.

Period.

Point blank.

You can't say that in other states.

There's a centralized location, there are other areas.

It may be hard to travel.

You wanna see what's going on?

Come down to Tremont and take a look.

We'll let you in, we'll let you see the equipment.

We want you to, so you can have confidence.

And I think all of us in the state of Illinois express that.

We want the public to be engaged with us.

- Are you telling me Chicago doesn't run the whole state?

- They do not.

- They don't.

- This is news to me.

- They don't.

- Yeah.

- Promise, they don't.

(Mark laughing) - All right, just trying to throw a little humor in there.

Your counterpart in McClean County, Kathy Michaels, said her office is planning a hotline for media members to call through the election where the staff can provide guidance, shoot down rumors, anything like that.

Is that anything that either Peoria or Tazewell County plans on doing?

- My cellphone already is pretty much a hotline.

(both laughing) I think everybody knows it, and everybody in the media knows how to get a hold of me.

I'll answer a phone call at any point to talk, because, again, it's about being accessible and being able to answer those questions.

So no, we already have those steps in place to be able to take care of any issues that come up like that.

- Any specific issues between now and, say, 2020 that you've learned in terms of just the voting process, any changes that have been made to try and streamline things, or make things less confusing?

I guess what I'm asking is when people vote in November, is there gonna be anything different done years past?

- Well I'll say that we have been increasing in the state of Illinois our usage of vote by mail.

And it is safe and it's a secure way to vote when the procedures are being followed by the election authorities.

So it gets back to having trust and making sure your local election authority is following the procedures and policies that are in place.

My problem with vote by mail, my concern is, unfortunately there's been changes with the United States Postal Service and how they handle election mail.

In 2020, they sent out a bulletin and made it a priority that all election mail will be handled within this jurisdiction, you know, there were special rules in place to maintain those ballots to lower the amount of hands that are physically touching those ballots, and moving them along.

Unfortunately, from what we've seen, that process has been removed.

They are going to more regional distribution centers, there are more hands on the process, the ballots are being transferred more and multiple times.

We have been working already with congressional leaders to hope to change that back before election day, back to the procedures of 2020 when it was more streamlined, it seemed, more quick.

I hope that's in place, because I do think throughout the state of Illinois, we're going to have some problems with the Postal Service's timely delivery of those ballots, if these changes aren't implemented.

But I'm confident after some congressional leaders have talked that they are working on that and getting it done.

I don't have any problems with vote by mail the way we handle it, but it's that outside source at the United States Postal Service, the changes that they implemented, that does concern me.

- What is the deadline on vote by mail?

When do you have to have your postmark?

- They have to be postmarked by election day.

- [Mark] Okay.

- And then it can be up to 14 days afterwards for it to hit our office.

We have implemented in Tazewell County a new service that allows for the ballot to be tracked by the voter, so when they put it in the mail, they can go online and be able to see where their ballot is and the process.

Peoria County has already had that.

This will empower the voters to hold the Postal Service accountable for the timely delivery of their ballot.

That is something, a feature, that hadn't been available before.

It's a free service that's being offered now in McClean, Tazewell, and Peoria County.

Again, Peoria County already had it.

But this'll empower those voters to be able to hold the Postal Service accountable for making sure that their ballot is delivered within that 14 day window.

We're just starting to see too many incidents of ballots coming in after that, in which we cannot count those ballots.

And the voter may have done everything right, it probably was a mistake, from what I've been seeing, it's been mistakes by the Postal Service that have denied those individuals the right to vote.

And as an election authority, I wanna try to eliminate that, so I'm proud to introduce that this year.

Again, Peoria County's already had it, but voters need to know when they're using vote by mail, they're empowered.

They have that ability.

Utilize that power.

Make sure that you're holding the Postal Service accountable for the timely delivery of your most precious item, your ability to vote in these elections.

- That was gonna be my next question.

When people vote by mail, do you typically see them trying to get it in as early as possible, or do they wait until as late as possible?

- I think there's really kind of a trend for both.

There's those people, they get their ballots right away, they vote 'em and get 'em right back in.

And then there's also people that like to hold onto it, see if anything changes in the political atmosphere before they cast their ballot and turn it in, so I think it really just depends on the voter themselves, but a difference that you'll see in Peoria County is we have added two additional drop boxes since 2020, so the concerns with the post office and being able to track that.

But if you don't want to put your ballot into the mail, you can use one of our local drop boxes.

So we have one that will be located at the North Branch Library, one downtown at the Civic Center by the drop box, and then one in our office as well.

So that's another way to return that vote by mail ballot, and ensure that it has been returned to the election authority.

- And of course another obvious one would be anyone can walk a ballot into the office and turn in their vote by mail ballot that way, hand delivering it themselves.

There's no requirement that it be mailed or utilize the drop box, but it can be hand delivered back to the election authority as well, so there are options out there, but the point is that people need to track that, and make sure that it is being done in the right procedure, in the right time frame.

- Sure.

How are both counties doing on election judge recruiting so far?

Do you have enough judges, or are we still looking?

- We're always taking judges and Peoria County.

We're doing really well right now, but I mean, we're always accepting applications, and we are going to be pushing, so school just started back up, so we are pushing hard to recruit high school election judges.

If you are a junior and senior in good standing at a local high school, you have permission from your principal and your parent, you can serve as an election judge.

It's a great way to get involved in the election process, kind of see behind the curtain, how does elections work, how does democracy work.

You get paid for it, you get a day off school.

So there are some benefits there, and we're really trying to push hard to get, our goal is to have 100 student election judges in Peoria County, so we'll see if we get there.

- All right.

John, what about you?

- The same.

I think her answer is great.

But I guess a tie-in there would be our change of our use of election judges has drastically changed since 2020.

As previously, the way we would run an election year is we would slowly ramp up our volume of work from the beginning of early voting all the way to election day, and election day, we would have our peak of most turnout, most activity, most need for assistance.

With vote by mail becoming so prominent now, it has changed every office in the state of Illinois where the first day of early voting, you've got a ton of ballots that are going out, and they're coming in now throughout that entire process, long process, so the work load and the volume of activity within the office has been drug out over a much larger time frame, and there isn't that slow ramp up, it is immediate.

An example, previously before 2020, the most vote by mail ballots Tazewell County had ever done was 4000 votes.

That's not bad.

But I'll be mailing out on day one this year 8000 vote by mail ballots.

So 4000 over the course of the entire election process is now doubled on day one.

I'll probably hit 12,000 vote by mail ballots by election day.

That workload's just not been seen in previous elections.

This is the second time, major time, that we've worked through this, so we've all adjusted our schedules and our work staff and our workflow, but it's something that's still being ironed out as well, is it's a much larger timeframe for a lot more activity taking place within the offices that previously in past generations had not been seen or done.

- Well, we've got him beat.

We're at 18,000 going out the first day.

- Okay.

- And like he said, it's a, we have 48 hours by law to once a ballot is returned to our office to process that, to check it in, and we need election judges to do that.

So we're doing this every other day, we have election judges in our office, and we are going through those returned vote by mail ballots.

So it is, once September 26th, we are full blown election mode through November 5th.

- I bet, I bet.

Well, let's get out our crystal balls briefly here.

It's a presidential year, 2024, and typically, more people vote on those presidential years.

What are your thoughts on possible turnouts this year?

- It's funny you say that, because at our press conference, we actually had a little bit of a disagreement there.

We're on different sides.

I think we're gonna be slightly down from where we were in 2020.

I don't think by much, but I don't think, I think the turnout will be a little less than what it was then.

The others in the room that day, including McClean County, all bet against me, that they thought we would have a higher turnout than we did in 2020.

- What are your thoughts behind that?

- I just feel, and especially I thought it was true when we had the two same candidates.

Now with a different candidate from one of the parties, that could change a bit, but I thought I was hearing some people say it's the same two as it was last time, and feeling a little disenfranchised that way.

So I thought that was gonna hold back a little of the numbers.

Plus, in 2020, it was a pandemic.

We were talking a ton about don't forget to vote, don't forget you can come out, the polls will be, so the topic, because of concern of them being closed because of the pandemic, I think drove a ton of volume that I just don't know if that attention will be there this time without a pandemic pushing it.

We always want 100%.

For Pete's sakes- - That's right.

- All of us complained about the workload, but we want 100% each time.

But I just feel myself, we're gonna be just a little less than where we were in 2020.

But my colleagues, again, think we're gonna be over that.

- What was the turnout out in 2020?

Do you recall?

- 76% in Tazewell County.

- That's great.

- We were a little below that.

I think we were at like 74%.

- [Mark] Okay.

- But I think we'll get above 75%.

I really do.

I think that people are involved, engaged, have very specific opinions, and want to voice those opinions.

And I really hope that they do.

- Now, just to clarify, we're not gonna see Joe Biden's name on a ballot.

We're gonna see Kamala Harris, correct?

- Yup.

- That is correct.

- Yeah, okay.

Don't want any confusion there.

(both laugh) That's for sure.

Any other races in your counties that you think people are gonna be really interested in this year?

- We both have the congressional race in the 17th Congressional District that has much more Peoria County and McClean County than it does Tazewell, but we do have that connection piece in between us there.

We also have a competitive race in the 93rd, I believe it is, House, which is the District of, the Representative District for Dave Koehler's senatorial district.

That one has a bit of competition.

I can't think of any others at this point that jump to my mind, but those two jump to mind as ones that are pretty active right now.

- We have some local ones that I hope, you know, it's not just the top of the ballot, right?

There are state and local races on your ballot as well, and we have a state's attorney race in Peoria County this election cycle.

We also have two county board districts that are contested as well, so if you live in those districts, do your research.

- [Mark] There you go.

- And I will say, too, don't forget, it's the last item on the ballot, but the state did flood quite a few ballot questions on there, so you are going to have quite a few ballot questions, so three from the state of Illinois.

I know Peoria Township will have an additional one there.

I don't know about the county.

I know our county doesn't have any others, but that's a lot of public questions at the bottom of the ballot that a lot of times get overlooked.

- Do your websites have sample ballots on them that people can look at?

- They will, not yet.

- Okay.

- I don't know if you've got your sample ballot yet ready, but no.

The week of September 20th, that week, we will have it on our website, PeoriaElections.gov, and you will be able to see.

Now keep in mind that when you see a sample ballot, it's going to have every single race for Peoria County.

If I was to put every single person's ballot on there, there would be over 300 ballots on there, and then that would be more confusion.

So if you wanna know what is going to be on your ballot when you vote, look at your voter registration card.

That yellow postcard that Peoria County sends out, it's gonna list all the election jurisdictions that you're qualified to vote on based on your address.

And you'll just match those up.

Look at your sample ballot, match it up to your voter registration card, and then you know what's gonna be on your ballot specifically.

- And on election day, I don't want to say problems always come up, but little things tend to pop up here and there.

Are you gonna be keeping people abreast of what's going on on your social media pages, anything like that?

- We do try to do that.

We work very closely with the Peoria County Communications Department to ensure that they're helping to get that information out.

We also partner with the local sheriff's office and the City of Peoria Police Department to ensure that they know where our polling places are, and they are around those areas in case there is a need for them as well.

- We do the same with our local sheriff's office.

We have an extra officer that is on duty thanks to our sheriff's cooperation, that that individual is available if anything should happen.

Furthermore, I personally, a busy day, but there's really nothing in the office to do that day, so the action's in the field.

So I engage in the field.

I'm out there, and I'll hit three fourths of our polling locations by the end of the day.

Mainly taking the time to talk with the judges and thank them, but also so I can get an eye on the process and see how things are going throughout the county.

If something should happen, I'm easily already on the road, can easily be at one of our locations quickly.

And it's been a rewarding thing for me, personally, to be out there, and I guess that's what I'd really stress for the public, too.

Don't forget, it's a busy day for all of us, but take the time to thank our election judges.

These volunteers are what we need.

You just heard Elizabeth talk about we're always looking for them.

We're always trying to get them.

They're vital to this process.

And we need to make sure that they know how much they're appreciated and valued, and that their time, the community sees the reward of their commitment.

So having the citizens thank them at the polling locations is a huge perk for them, and it really does help us ensure that we have volunteers in the future.

- Very quickly, before we wrap this up, if people have questions before election day, what is the best way to get a hold of one of your offices?

- Sure.

You can call our office, 309-324-2300.

Go to our website, PeoriaElections.gov, or visit our Facebook page, Peoria County Election Commission.

- John?

- 309-477-2264, extension number three.

That's the Elections Division.

Hit our TazewellCounty.gov website.

Just all those ways to reach out to us.

- All right, well if you do have any questions, they can answer 'em, and please just get out and vote.

It's important.

Elizabeth Gannon with Peoria County, and John Ackerman with Tazewell County.

Thanks for your time.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for having us.

- Appreciate it.

And that's our time for right now.

Thanks for joining us.

"You Gotta See This" is next.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)