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Morning! I’ll be live-tweeting today’s Chicago Board of Election Commissioners meeting for @CHIdocumenters. There’s a lot going on down the street—at City Council #NoCopAcademy #DelayTheTIF & #HellNoHilco press conference is in progress. Final votes on all 3 today #ChiDocumenters
Here’s a link to the agenda for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners meeting app.chicagoelections.com/documents/gene…
And, for good measure, here’s a @BlockClubCHI article on today’s City Council meeting blockclubchicago.org/2019/03/13/rah…
Also, I’m probably giving someone free advertising, but what is going on in Daley Plaza? 
Meeting started at 9:32 am. Commissioners Marisel A. Hernandez and Johnathan T. Swain are present
We’re going out of order on the agenda, starting with public comment. The first speaker is Laura Chamberlain, with a ballot integrity group. She says they got lots of calls about election judges and election investigators “colluding” with each other against poll watchers
She is concerned about election judges & investigators “carrying water” for incumbent aldermen & the committeemen who nominate them. She suggested they work in places other than where they were nominated; an official said they have to acc. state law, she suggested changing law
Chamberlain also raised concerns about an incident in the 40th Ward where, in a precinct where voting happens in a police station, a poll watcher was thrown out of the station by a police officer. She asked whether police stations are appropriate voting locations
Dan Sheehan is raising similar concerns, talking about seeing poll watchers appointed by committeemen be “real cozy” with the election judges. Raised multiple incidents (Also Commissioner William J. Kresse has shown up)
Hernandez asked if Sheehan reported the incidents; he said he gave notes to his supervisor, asked if it was election coordinator & investigators’ job. She said citizens can call in and they send an investigator immediately. “You telling us now, there’s no way we can investigate”
The commissioners are engaging w/ Sheehan, asking him questions & responding, but it’s a little testy. One official said he thinks the public underestimates what an “uphill battle” it would be to change the law to have election judges work different precincts than where nominated
Claire Tobin affirmed the previous two speakers’ concerns & raised a new concern over instructions regarding mail-in ballots, saying that election officials at multiple precincts during the municipal election were confused over what to tell people w/ mail-in ballots who came in
Hernandez again emphasized that she should have reported all this the day of, and that they can send messages to election officials to clarify day-of, but said they would look into clarifying the instructions
William Doc Walls, a write-in candidate for City Clerk, is concerned abt “votes cast versus votes counted.” Says “It is our best belief... Anna Valencia does not have the majority of votes cast,” because votes for struck-off candidates etc. not counted toward that
An official said for official proclamation of the city clerk race, the tally was updated to include eligible write-in candidates, & Valencia now has ~99.8% of the vote. He said the revised Cities & Villages Act says we calculate percentages based on votes cast, not ballots cast
“‘Votes cast’ is a term of art in the election industry, as is ‘ballots cast,’” he said. “Votes cast” is limited to valid votes for an eligible candidate—only write-in candidates who filed declarations of intent are counted, for example
Hernandez said something about Walls starting to sound like he was making oral arguments for his court case (as he was disagreeing with their interpretation of the law) and said that she is looking forward to hearing how his case goes. Public comment is now closed.
Hernandez said that re: the alleged 40th Ward incident, her recommendation would be to refer that particular matter for further investigation. She also reiterated that the election integrity folks, and any citizens, need to call Election Central about problems they see the day of
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners just voted unanimously to approve the statement of returns and proclamation of results for the February 26, 2019 Municipal General Election!
General Counsel Adam Lasker (the official mentioned in several previous tweets—just caught his nameplate) highlighted they’re proclaiming the results 6 days before the statutory deadline as part of working hard to prep for the runoff—they’re starting some early voting on Friday
The meeting was adjourned at 10:16 am, but I believe that’s because the proclamation of results and the regular board meeting are technically separate. Now calling to order and opening a new meeting at 10:21 am. Here’s the agenda again app.chicagoelections.com/documents/gene…
Minutes from the Jan 8 and Jan 22 board meetings were approved. Now the assistant executive director is giving a report
Two notes from the first part of the meeting: Laura Chamberlain should have been Lora Chamberlain. Also, Commissioner Swain noted before the end of the first part that there’s a slight shortage of election judges, & suggested looking into giving continuing education credit for it
The assistant ED says all ballots have been released to the printer, 1000s of requests for mail-in ballots already, and next Monday citywide early voting will start (after starting one or a few places on Friday)
A few polling places have said they’re not coming back for the runoff; someone is working on dealing with that. Also, the estimate for ballots they gave to the printer Lake County Press was off, so more money for that will have to be added to the agenda for next week
Communications Director James Allen is reporting. Early voting and vote by mail broke records for Chicago municipal elections; overall turnout of 35.5% ok, better than other large cities, he said, but nothing to write home about
Allen said there was a new (good) low mark in provisional ballots—about 2500 this time, less than a third of the previous mark of 8000, which he attributed to reforms like Election Day registration, “which this board advocated”
Allen also affirmed that about 2 dozen polling places are going to change, and an early voting site will have to change because it’s undergoing renovations
“Old business” on the agenda was breezed through, now on to new business. 1st item is a request for reconsideration of a disqualification of a referendum—the person it involved is not present, surprising Lasker, who said they corresponded yesterday
The request involved disregarding something abt the signature requirement; the person had pointed out how difficult it can be to file a referendum petition in its odd timing. Lasker agreed it was hard, saying, “I wish the statute had more specificity” to carve out the time period
“Nevertheless, the law is written the way it is... my opinion is that in order to do what they’re requesting we’d have to violate the language of the statute,” Lasker said. The board voted to deny the request
Motions to change the amount of a contract and to approve a contract for driver and transportation services that already happened (the provider didn’t contact them to point out the contract had expired) passed
Lasker gave a brief legal report, highlighting that there are pending election contests in the 6th and 34th Wards, and a legal challenge from Walls, who spoke earlier. The board approved a balance sheet involving $839,444.90 and a financial report
There was no one signed up for public comment, and no need for an executive session today. Meeting adjourned at 10:43 am. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners’ next regular meeting is on March 26th. @CHIdocumenters
