Some fear Madigan opinion could delay election results
CHICAGO (WLS) -- There is concern that next week's election results will be delayed after some election officials say new guidelines from the Illinois Attorney General's office will dramatically slow the vote count. In this town, election night delays lead to dissatisfaction.
"I don't trust them! I don't trust them!" former Cook County Board president Anthony Peraica said in 2006. "They run better elections in Afghanistan and Baghdad!"
"Suspicion. Questions. Anger. Anxiety," Chicago Board of Elections Chairman Langdon Neal said.
ABC7's Ben Bradley asks: "You've seen them all?"
"I've seen them all and been the recipient of it," Neal said.
What's worrying the Chicago Board of Elections chairman right now is the new opinion of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, which reads: "No absentee voters' ballots or early voters' ballots should be placed into the tabulators prior to 7:00 p.m. on the day of the election."
"If we can't begin processing these ballots until after 7 p.m., results are going to be tremendously delayed," Neal said.
Bradley asks: "How delayed would you guess?"
"It could be until the wee hours of the morning," Neal said.
The attorney general's instruction to election boards across Illinois comes after an unspecified county downstate not only counted, but posted, absentee results before polls closed.
"Obviously that's not supposed to happen. That could sway an election and we want to make sure we maintain integrity in the elections that take place," Madigan said.
The head of the DuPage County Elections Board says he is equally concerned following the attorney general's guidance would cause significant delays in learning the results of the election, especially in a year with a close governor's race.
He and others are asking Madigan to rework her instructions to allow them to begin processing early ballots as usual.
The other option is elections officials could ignore the attorney general's advice because it's an opinion, and not a court order.
