Chambana Sun

With the April 4 election a day away, an inconsistency has been noted in mail-in ballots in Vermilion County.

Jacob Lane said he did a double-take when he noticed the return postage for his father’s mail-in ballot was already stamped with a return date of March 27 rather than being processed and stamped when the U.S. Postal Service receives the ballot. 

“I just looked at my father's mail-in ballot for the upcoming election on Tuesday in Illinois,” Lane said. “Although the ballot was sent to him in late February, the return date on his ballot is marked March 27, 2023. With this, the election commission will have no idea when a ballot was actually postmarked, or if it was postmarked by the deadline to be considered valid. With a postmark set on each ballot sent out, it will appear as if any, even those sent late, made it by the appropriate deadline.

“I just thought it was very strange that the return ballots were already pre-stamped with a date, especially considering that not everyone will get their ballot in by March 27, which has already come and gone.”

Presumably the date of return of any ballot sent in via the prepaid envelopes will not be able to be determined even if posted after the drop-off date.

The Danville Election Commission is responsible for the ballots. 

"The Danville Election Commission is in charge of conducting elections in the city of Danville. We hold city, county, state and federal elections. We also handle all voter registration for the city of Danville, train election judges, create ballot layouts, communicate election results, redistricting, creating polling places, etc.," the Danville Election Commission website reads.

The move comes as permanent vote-by-mail continues to be deployed.  

“In the Spring of 2021 Public Act 102-0015 created a vote by mail (VBM) request list that is permanent, also known as continuing. This simply means you only have to request a VBM ballot once from your County Clerk. Unless you move, pass away, or request to be removed from the list, you will receive a VBM ballot for every election you are eligible to vote in,” the Champaign County Clerk and Recorder of Deeds Office website reads.

Many have complained the new vote-by-mail standards will further open voting in Illinois to ballot harvesting and other items of concern.

In the last election cycle notable issues occurred with mail-in ballots.  

Illinois is one of 22 states that allow for ballot harvesting – that is someone else other than the voter is allowed turn in mail-in ballots.

“In California, Illinois, Kansas, and a few other states, there is no explicit limit to how many ballots an individual can submit as long as they are authorized to do so by the voters,” advocacy group No Labels notes on its website.

That has led to large-scale efforts in Illinois to harvest ballots from like-minded voters.

In the fall 2022 election, mail-in ballot integrity was an issue. In that contest, DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek was remanded by the courts for her sloppy handling of mail-in ballots.

State Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst) filed legal action against Kaczmarek for improperly verifying mail-in ballots. The court issued a temporary restraining order against the clerk on her behalf, noting Kaczmarek’s staff was "improperly using Vote by Mail applications to validate a voter's signature on a Vote by Mail ballot.”

Mazzochi noted the court's decision in a press release, stating "using a Vote by Mail application to qualify signatures on the Vote by Mail ballot itself would be an obvious way to commit ballot fraud."

Illinois has long suffered from election fraud issues and allowing the large-scale harvest of ballots and not properly ensuring the integrity of those ballots is one.

When permanent vote by mail was passed in the Illinois legislature, political commentator John Lott came out swinging.

“I think it will create potentials for fraud and for vote buying,” Lott told Prairie State Wire at the time. “But there is a reason why all the other countries in the world – or most of them – ban absentee ballots, let alone types of mail-in ballots.

“You look at Europe, for example, as the 47 countries in Europe, 35 of the 47 countries banned absentee ballots for people living in the country. And the reason why they do and then there is another 10 that allow absentee ballots, but they limit it to – they will not send it in the mail. You have to go in person to pick up the absentee ballot and you have to show a government-issued photo ID to be able to pick it up.

“So that's 45 of the 47 countries in Europe have that. And the reason why even the 10 will not send it to you in the mail is that they're worried that the ballots will get stolen even for absentee, where you're having to ask for rather than mail in where it's just sending it out to people.”

Presumably due to ballot harvesting, DuPage County also observed a spike in the number of dead residents registering to vote ahead of the 2020 election.

Only a few weeks before former President Donald Trump contested the presidential election results, NBC 5 Chicago referred to adding deceased voters to voter records as "a time-honored Chicago tradition.”