The Illinois Undervote Notification Law, part of the 2007 omnibus election bill, required that by the year 2010 all Illinois voting systems detect and notify voters if they undervote, which is a ballot that does not include votes for one or more races.
In Illinois, the voter must be notified if they do not cast a vote for a statewide constitutional office (Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Treasurer). Depending upon the voting machine, some state and local undervoted ballots may also be rejected.
What this means is that if you don't cast a vote for every state race, your ballot will be refused. You will have to tell an election judge that you intended not to vote for every office and he will need to override the ballot, which may involve unlocking the machine and pressing an over-ride button several times befor it is accepted. Also, during that process, the election judge could be privy to those office races in which you did not vote.
So much for casting a secret ballot. And be prepared to stand in line because it is estimated that 60-70% of ballots in some counties are undervoted.
6 comments:
Whaaaaaaaaat? That is just stoopid. I don't think I have ever cast a ballot for a general election where I didn't skip over some contests.
Amazing!
Hey... did you see where J.D. Salinger died today???
~shoes~
Ermmmm......
And the point of any of this (the undervote notification law - what a dumb name for a piece of legislation btw) would be???
Having a free and fair election isn't that complicated. Unless you go out of your way to make it so.
wv: chumb - I think I shall invent a new language based on wv.
'Hubert had stepped out for a quick chumb when disaster struck...'
To be continued. Sorry - end of working week so feeling silly.
gls and white: The politicians just want to make sure they get all the votes they can. I'm sure some of their egos are hurt when people don't even bother to vote for some races. My advice - just don't vote, period.
shoes: Yes, I saw he died. But we know The Catcher in the Rye will always be a classic.
I've always left the ballot blank where I didn't know enough about any of the candidates to make a halfway intelligent choice. Maybe Illinois officials will provide candidate's photos on the ballot, so you can look into their eyes and decide which looked more honest?! Or would you decide by which name you've heard more often?
alice: I think those politicians who spend the most money getting name recognition hope that will be the case with this new law.
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