Some Close Legislative Races May Not Be Decided Until At Least Nov. 17
Many candidates awaiting the impact of mail-in ballots on their race may not see any of the results of those counts until November 17.
While election authorities in many states with a contested presidential race furiously updated count numbers, sometimes at all hours of the night, before Vice President Joe Biden was declared victorious by the Associated Press and news networks, many election offices in Illinois either haven’t counted, or just haven’t reported, any new numbers since late Tuesday night.
Some seats for State Representative, State Senator, and even a seat for Congress from Illinois are still way too close for a candidate to declare victory. Rep. John Cabello (R-Machesney Park) has a 323-vote lead over Democrat Dave Vella. Rep. Karina Villa (D-West Chicago) has a 1,651-vote lead over Republican Jeanette Ward for the open seat currently held by Sen. Jim Oberweis (R-Sugar Grove.) Oberweis is running for Congress, where he currently trails incumbent Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-Naperville) by 1,137 votes as of Monday morning.
But many election officials haven’t updated their results since late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, giving no clearer picture to the mail-in ballots they have counted or received since the polls closed.
McHenry County Clerk Joe Tirio says his office may update results on Tuesday but may not before the 17th. Will County Clerk Lauren Staley-Ferry says she was discussing with staff Monday whether to issue a set of results before November 17.
In the case of Cabello’s razor-thin race, the Rockford Board of Elections told the Rockford Register-Star results will be updated periodically. Winnebago County Clerk Lori Gummow says she doesn’t plan to update results until November 17th, leaving both campaigns completely in the dark for another week.
Lake County Clerk Robin O’Connor originally said her office would only publish updated results on November 10th and 17th, but has been gradually updating results over the weekend, including late Sunday night.
Rep. Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville), who trails Democratic opponent Janet Yang-Rohr in his DuPage and Will County district by 1,898 votes as of Monday morning, says he is concerned about the slow count and the transparency of where remaining votes come from.
“We need to take a serious look at how we run our elections,” said Wehrli. “Not only with our significant time delays in posting the votes on Election Night, but the vote-by-mail process is one that I have a raised eyebrow to. I try to believe as much as I can in a fair and open election process here, but the delays certainly aren’t helping.”
Wehrli says his campaign sent a letter to the addresses the DuPage County Clerk sent mail-in ballots to, and over 250 have been returned to his campaign. He says he’s gotten no explanation from the County Clerk on if the requests on the status of those ballots.
UPDATE (12:14 P.M):
Wehrli did concede his race to Democrat Janet Yang-Rohr Wedneday, meaning he won’t ask for any discovery or full recounts in the race, but doesn’t mean any potential remaining votes could change the race.
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A call to DuPage County Clerk Jane Kaczmarek has not yet been returned.
Counties are required to submit counts of their outstanding ballots to the Illinois State Board of Elections. As of Monday morning, Cook County alone had around 180,000 ballots in that had yet to be processed. Another 122,000 ballots had been sent out but not returned. DuPage County reported around 4,700 ballots in and not counted with another around 13,000 sent out but not returned.
Most of those counties are also not providing information as to where the outstanding ballots are from, leaving campaigns and media alike guessing how many outstanding votes could be left to impact each race. Only Will County is providing outstanding ballots by precinct, while Jersey County in southern Illinois provided the number of outstanding ballots in the 112th Legislative District race when contacted by The Illinoize.