Whether new laws that Gov. Pritzker signed achieve a massive expansion of mail-in voting will depend on how many people want to vote that way this fall. LaSalle County Clerk Lori Bongartz says voters will get the opportunity. She’s required to send more than 42,000 mail-in ballot applications by August 1. Those will go to people who voted in the last three elections going back to 2018.
That’s more than half the county’s registered voters. The rest can ask for a mail-in ballot too. They just won’t automatically get the application in the mail. Anyone who wants to vote in person by early voting or on election day at a polling place may still do that.
When the mail-in ballot arrives at the County Clerk’s office, a panel of three election judges will examine it to make sure the signature matches the one on file for the voter. At least one judge must be a Democrat and at least one must be a Republican. That is meant to safeguard against fraud.
The idea behind encouraging people to vote by mail is to minimize the number of people passing through polling places where they may still be able to spread the COVID-19 virus on election day.