Illinois proposal calls for expanding vote-by-mail
URBANA – As the 2024 election season draws near, voters in Illinois will once again choose whether they want to cast their ballots in person or by mail.
But one lawmaker is proposing a bill in the Illinois House that could make that decision a lot easier, making voting by mail the default option for people in counties and cities that choose to go that route.
State Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, said voting by mail has been shown to be a more convenient and efficient way of running elections.
“Vote-by-mail has been proven by way of court order, as well as people's utilization of vote-by-mail – I vote by mail – that it has been safe,” she said during an interview. “There have been no problems. I have not missed a single election. And people who use it increase their voter participation.”
Voting by mail, often referred to as absentee voting, was originally intended for people who planned to be away from home on Election Day, particularly military personnel, as well as college students and people whose jobs required them to travel. That often required voters to ask their state or local election official for an absentee ballot and, in some cases, explain why they wanted to vote by mail.
In more recent years, Illinois and other states have made voting by mail an option for anyone by adopting “no-excuse” absentee voting laws, meaning anyone could request a mail ballot without giving a reason.
Illinois also gives voters the option of asking to be placed on a permanent vote-by-mail list so they can automatically receive a mail-in ballot without having to fill out a new request for one each election cycle. And in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the General Assembly passed a law requiring local election officials automatically send vote-by-mail applications to every voter in their jurisdiction, instead of requiring voters to ask for one.
Lows in the 20s are expected along the northern Gulf Coast, from East Texas to North Florida. Temperatures could drop into the teens and perhaps a few single digit-lows in the Deep South, The Weather Channel says.
An area of ice extended from northeastern Texas to the northern parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia early Monday. This “icy zone” was due to expand southeastward into the central and western Gulf coast by Monday night, AccuWeather said.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, tasked with operating the state's power grid, has said it expects the grid to function normally, though city and county leaders and energy experts have warned of the possibility of outages caused by extreme conditions. In the winter storm of 2021, 4 million Texans were left without power after nearly half of the state's generation capacity was knocked offline because of frozen equipment and other weather-related problems across the system.
In Mississippi, the National Weather Service in Jackson warned temperatures would fall as low as single digits, with wind chills to below zero through Tuesday night. The weather service urged residents to “protect people, pipes and pets” as the freeze is likely to last until late Wednesday morning.
“A wintry mix is ongoing across the Delta and parts of southeast AR and northeast LA,” the National Weather
Service said. “While accumulations will be greatest farther north and west, travel issues are expected across much of the area.”
Over 11,000 US flights were affected Monday
Almost 80% of the nation could see below-freezing temperatures and over 140 daily cold records could be broken by Tuesday from Oregon to Mississippi, CNN reported.
The good news is that by Wednesday the arctic air mass will moderate. The bad news is another surge of frigid arctic air expected to plunge southward from Canada by week's end. That, he said, could lead to more dangerous conditions across the Midwest and Deep South.