On Friday, Jan. 14, the DuPage County Board failed to pass updated election precincts to meet the legal deadline of Saturday, Jan. 15, leaving in place existing precincts which do not comply with the requirements of state law, according to a release from the County Clerk’s office.
On Monday, Nov. 15, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed Illinois Public Act 102-0668, which required all County Boards to divide their election precincts within 60 days “so that each precinct shall contain, as near as may be practicable, 1,200 registered voters.” The legislation also mandated that “insofar as is practicable, each precinct shall be situated within a single congressional, legislative and representative district and in not more than one County Board district and one municipal ward,” and “each district shall be composed of contiguous territory in as compact form as can be for the convenience of the electors voting therein.”
DuPage County Election Division professional staff worked diligently over the following weeks to draft new precinct boundaries in compliance with the requirements of state law and without political favoritism. On Wednesday, Jan. 5, ten days before the statutory deadline, County Board members were provided the Election Division staff’s recommended precinct maps. The proposed maps were posted on the DuPage County website for public review and provided directly to the chairs of the DuPage County Democratic and Republican parties.
Since the public distribution of the maps, the County Clerk’s Office has received no negative feedback regarding the compliance of the proposed precincts with the law’s requirements concerning population, electoral district boundaries, or voter convenience. However, at the DuPage County Board’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 11, and again at a special call on Friday, several board members of both parties expressed displeasure that the maps had not been drawn to the specifications of the local political parties to deliberately prevent contested elections for the partisan position of precinct committeeperson.
During floor debate, board members spoke regarding their desire to look out for the interests of the political ground troops who work to elect them. Members stated an intention to vote against the establishment of new election precincts as a protest and openly invited a lawsuit to attempt to force the County Board to comply with the requirements signed into law by the Governor.
During a four-hour special meeting called for the sole purpose of establishing the boundaries of DuPage County’s election precincts, the County Board voted down the statutorily compliant precinct maps presented by the County Clerk by a 10-6 margin.
The County Board’s failure to take any action before the legal deadline leaves in place the county’s existing election precincts, which no longer align with the boundaries of congressional and other legislative districts redrawn after the 2020 Census and do not conform with the law’s requirements regarding precinct size.
“The decision of some DuPage County Board members of both parties to openly defy state law and prioritize politics over voting rights is deeply disappointing,” County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said. “Precincts exist as an organizational unit for the benefit of the voters, not for politicians. The County Board’s failure to align DuPage County’s election precincts with the boundaries of its representative districts will cause inconvenience and confusion for voters and increase the cost of elections for our taxpayers. Nevertheless, I remain committed to administering DuPage County elections in a fair and non-partisan manner with the interests and rights of our county’s voters as my highest priority.”
