![\"\"](\"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Illinois-voters-300x240.jpg\" "\\"Illinois-voters\\"")
Illinois’ polls are open for the nation’s first primary election of 2010, and election commissioners are claiming voter turnout has been as slow as expected.<\/p>\nIllinois’ polls are open for the nation’s first primary election of 2010, and election commissioners are claiming voter turnout has been as slow as expected.<\/p>\n
Robert Saar, director of the election commission for the DuPage County Clerk’s Office, said the morning has been pretty quiet, adding the additional snowfall didn’t help push people out the door to vote Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“Its been pretty quiet so far, indicative of a 27 percent turnout or so,” he said. “But, this whole cycle has been slower than one would expect, so there hasn’t been any surprises so far.” <\/span><\/p>\n He said, historically, voters in DuPage County turn out in the 35 percent range, but said an increase in the number of registered voters along with a weak economy has slowed the number of people heading to the polls.<\/p>\n He said a lack of tax increase referendums on the ballot has left voters lethargic at a local level, so only hard-core voters are expected to punch a ticket today.<\/p>\n “There isn’t as many tough decisions out there, so local voters will not be pushed into voting this time around,” he said. “In primary elections like today, what drives voter turnout is what local level elections will do to their pocket book.”<\/p>\n Lake County Clerk Willard Helander said it was definitely slower, but feels it’s more because voters do not want to declare themselves a Republican or a Democrat in order to vote in the primary election.<\/p>\n “We’ve had a significant number of people ask for a non-partisan ballot, to which we’ve had to explain that, because there isn’t a public question on the ballot, there wasn’t one available,” she said.<\/p>\n She agreed though, that the weather isn’t causing voters to stay home. She said the low voter turnout trend was spotted ahead of time when only 19,000 early voting ballots were cast.<\/p>\n “It’s snowy, but it seems like public works crews are doing a good job at the polls where I’ve been,” she said. “I just think people do not like to vote in primary’s because they do not want to be labeled a Democrat or a Republican.”<\/p>\n Kane County Clerk John Cunningham said voter turnout is also extremely low, with fewer ballots cast as of 9:39 a.m. than the number of early votes.<\/p>\n Cunningham said, that 13,310 votes have been cast so far, with 7,221 coming from early voters and that only about 6 percent of the 17,245 registered voters have gone to the polls.<\/p>\n “I think it is the weather and also campaigns haven’t hit a nerve and gotten people excited,” Cunningham said. “Candidates have worked hard, but people have been campaigning for five years in a row and I think people may be a little worn out.”<\/p>\n Cook County elections spokeswoman Gail Siegel says polls opened in all Cook County precincts on time, adding lines formed in some spots, but adding it was slow going at others.<\/p>\n Siegel said a false fire alarm caused only a small delay at a polling place in Proviso Township.<\/p>\n Siegel says her office hasn’t received any complaints about a new feature on voting machines. For the first time, the machines reject incomplete ballots where someone fails to vote in one or more races for statewide office.<\/p>\n Election judges are asking voters if they intentionally left part of the ballot blank when the machine spots so-called “undervoting,” Siegel said. If not, they’ll be allowed to vote in those races.<\/p>\n If so, the ballot will be approved.<\/p>\n Read the original article on DailyHerald.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Illinois’ polls are open for the nation’s first primary election of 2010, and election commissioners are claiming voter turnout has been as slow as expected. Robert Saar, director of the election commission for the DuPage County Clerk’s Office, said the morning has been pretty quiet, adding the additional snowfall didn’t help push people out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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