Nine precincts and Knox County had two races missing from their Democratic ballots on Primary Election Day last Tuesday.
Precincts including Maquon, Ontario, Victori and Walnut Grove didn’t initially have contested races for state central committeeman and committeewoman for the 17th District.
These positions represent the same district Cheri Bustos represents in Congress but this is to for who would represent the district in the Democratic Central Committee at the state level.
County Clerk Scott Erickson says they were alerted mid-morning of the races missing and sent over emergency ballots that were counted by hand later at the courthouse.
They investigated the issue and found that the same ballots had gone out to nine precincts.
Erickson and his staff quickly found a way to remedy the situation. “We created a special emergency ballot that was sent out to those polling locations. And voters that were selecting Democratic ballots were given those supplemental ballots [allowing] them to vote for those two races that were there. And instead of [running] them through the scanners, they put them in the emergency ballot slot in the ballot boxes.”
He adds that they counted those votes at the courthouse and that the ballot cards were already burned, so to redo them would risk jeopardizing the election’s integrity
The County Clerk says he doesn’t think early voters to these precincts that might have missed voting on these races would have “flipped the outcome.”
Both the races that were decided by margins in the thousands, were not drastically altered by the number of early voters in those precincts that might have missed voting in those races.
The races were for 17th District State Precinct Committeeman and Committeewoman, who represents the district in the state’s Democratic party organization.
The winners, both incumbents won by thousands of votes each.Kate Jennings won by over 13,000 votes and and Don Johnston won by about 5,000.
