Improved mail-in system expected to increase Cook County voter numbers

The Cook County Clerk’s office is expecting an increase in suburban Cook County voting numbers for the general election in November, thanks to a reworked, more convenient mail-in voting system.

Noah Praetz, Cook County deputy director of elections, spoke about the new mail voting available to voters at a DePaul University graduate journalism class Monday.

Praetz, who has worked in Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office since 2000, is optimistic that the ease with which individuals can vote, coupled with new technology, will produce a “sea change” in ballot numbers recorded in 2008.

Noah Praetz, Deputy Director of Election for Cook County, talks about sample ballots at a DePaul University journalism class. (Photo by Mike Reilley)

Up until last year, residents of Illinois were required to submit a signed affidavit for absentee voting.Since then, the process has been made easier by only requiring an application (available in English, Spanish, Hindi and Chinese) to be filled out for mail voting. This simplification is in line with Illinois’ “no excuse” absentee voting policy, as applications for early voting provide an alternative for those who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day.

Praetz also explained the re-dubbing of absentee balloting to mail-in voting. “All you have to do is go to our website. Download an application, fill it out, mail it in…then you’ll get a ballot. You fill that out, sign the affidavit on the back of the envelope, send it in and that’ll be counted.

“We expect and are ramping up for this to become a much greater portion of our voting,” said Praetz. “Four years ago there were only about 25,000 absentee ballots returned, and I think we could double, triple, even quadruple that number this year.”

Voting registration closes 28 days prior to the Nov. 6 election date, though voters can take advantage of the”Grace Period” Registration extension, which allows them extra time to update their registration information. If one waits to vote during this extended period from Oct. 10 to Nov. 3, however, they are eligible for grace period registration at each Clerk’s office location.

As mentioned earlier, technology has been a decisive factor in attempts to boost suburban Cook County voting numbers. In March, the Cook County Clerk’s office purchased a new mail sorting system that helps tally votes faster than before, improving the efficiency of counting votes, especially those collected via absentee ballots.

Prior to March, officials needed to hand-check each ballot received, comparing signatures to confirm the voter’s identity and sorting them into their respective piles. This long, inefficient process has now been replaced by a more cost-effective operation.

“The per-vote cost of administering a mail-in program is tremendously lower than the per-vote cost of precinct voting,” said Praetz. “We calculated that we process about one ballot every four minutes for precinct voting. We know that with our new technology we’re way below that, closer to 10 ballots per minute.

“A camera takes a picture and scans the signature and bar code…it’s very quick.”

The mail sorting system was purchased with federal funding for $216, 914 made available by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which is viewable in full here.

Voting in the city is under the jurisdiction of the City of Chicago and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Forthe general election in November, Praetz said, Orr’s office will train and employ nine to 10 thousand election judges, overseeing 10,000 pieces of voting equipment to tally votes from 1,673 precincts.