Will County clerk vouches for election integrity amid lies
Despite what you might have heard, foreign agents are unable to remotely manipulate ballot counting equipment to change or delete votes in U.S. elections.
Contrary to popular belief, states did not illegally expand voting by mail during the pandemic. Millions of people did not fraudulently vote by mail.
No, there isn’t a shred of evidence of widespread voting fraud. The fact is Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 7 million votes in the 2020 presidential election and won the Electoral College 306 to 232.
Yet, rather than admit Biden beat Trump fairly, many cast doubt on election integrity and security. Trump, members of Congress and others have eroded faith in democracy by promoting the “big lie” that election results cannot be trusted.
To some, it doesn’t seem to matter that judges ruled more than 60 times there was no basis for lawsuits alleging fraud. It doesn’t seem to matter that exhaustive recounts and audits in Arizona’s Maricopa County and elsewhere affirmed vote counts.
There seems to be a growing belief rooted in the shadows of misinformation spread on social media and misleading opinions shared on cable talk shows that it’s OK to reject vote results if your side lost.
“It is frustrating to hear those comments because I know how hard we work here,” Will County Clerk Lauren Staley Ferry said. “I know the checks and balances we take here during elections.”
More than 155 million American citizens voted in the 2020 presidential election. Every one of those votes was tallied at the local level. Will County is among 3,143 counties, boroughs, parishes and equivalent jurisdictions that tabulate election results in the United States, according to the Census Bureau.
“I can’t talk about other states or other counties or what happens on the federal level,” Staley Ferry said.
But every county counts its own votes and she can vouch for the integrity of elections on her watch.
“In Will County we really haven’t had any issues,” she said. “I think that’s because both sides of the political aisle in Will County have been really measured in their approach to election security.”
For example, the county board’s minority leader, Mike Fricilone, a Republican from Homer Glen who ran for Congress in 2020, joined Democrats recently to announce delivery of new voting equipment. The county spent $1.9 million on new gear to handle what is expected to be a permanent expansion of voting by mail.
“When the Board makes funding decisions, we always look at the return on our investments,” Fricilone said in a statement. “The savings we will see in reduced costs of the clerk’s operations will exceed the amount of dollars the board is allocating to make this automation happen.”
The county’s new Evolulet printer from BlueCrest can print 2,200 ballots per hour. Basement space at the Will County Building in Joliet is being renovated to accommodate delivery and installation of additional equipment to assemble and sort vote-by-mail packets in time for the June 28 primary, she said.
Will County had 463,465 registered voters in 2020, and 75.1% voted in the presidential election. The clerk walked me through how the 348,071 votes were cast and counted.
It is important for people to understand how difficult it would be to commit fraud in an election. Every county uses checks and balances to comply with laws and ensure accuracy of vote counts.
It is inconceivable that irregularities would go unnoticed or unchallenged at the local level, let alone on a national scale that could affect the outcome of a presidential race.
Trump has repeatedly attacked voting by mail. He has lied about dead people and pets casting ballots. He has deliberately misled followers by confusing applications with actual ballots.
In Will County, the clerk sent vote-by-mail applications to all registered voters in 2020. The office fulfilled requests for 123,779 mail-in ballots, a 310% increase from 2016.
“People have really taken to the vote-by-mail process,” Staley Ferry said, The pandemic was likely the reason, she said. “We just saw a huge increase in people that wanted to vote by mail.”
Only people who returned applications were mailed ballots.
“They could take that application and throw it right in the garbage if they wanted,” she said. “They could come into the polling place on Election Day. We have early voting locations. There was no mandate for anybody to vote by mail. It was purely by choice.”
Voters in Will County vote by darkening ovals on paper ballots. Ballots are then fed into machines that tabulate votes. Machines are not connected to the internet. There is no way anyone can change or delete votes.
Election judges from both parties are present when vote-by-mail envelopes are opened and when ballots are counted, Staley Ferry said. If there is a dispute over a discrepancy (think hanging chads in Florida during the 2000 presidential election), judges vote in accordance with state law whether to accept or reject a ballot.
“It has always been election judges from both parties that handle these processes,” Staley Ferry said. “We always have poll watchers watching these processes, too.”
In the spirit of openness and transparency about the voting process, the public is welcome to view a publicized test of equipment before each election.
“I wish more people would come in,” she said. “During the public tests, nobody comes. People should come and see what we’re doing here so we can help dispel some of the concerns people have.”
If there is a close race or doubts about a tally, paper ballots can be counted by hand and compared to the machine count. Also, state law requires that every county double check voting results for accuracy in 5% of precincts after each election.
“It could be a huge precinct where we have to re-feed all those ballots through, then the political party leaders and poll watchers check those tapes and make sure there are no discrepancies,” Staley Ferry said.
Due to population growth recorded by the 2020 census, the number of precincts in Will County has increased to 310 from 304.
Democrats and nonpartisan critics say Republicans are using unfounded accusations of widespread fraud to reduce numbers of polling places in Democratic areas, prohibit drop boxes for ballots and other voter suppression measures.
Partisans who value political power more than democracy are eroding faith in elections with partisan attacks on clerks and other election officials who refuse to go along with the big lie.
As the nation observes the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, Americans should call on Congress to strengthen voting rights and denounce the use of violence for political gain.