Cairo has no ballots for city election

CAIRO, Ill. -- No applicants have been seeking to cast absentee ballots for the Feb. 27 municipal elections in Cairo, Alexander County Clerk Kent Thomas said Thursday.

That's good, he said, because there aren't any ballots yet.

"No one has been turned away," Thomas said. "No one has even tried yet."

Thursday was the first day voters could cast absentee ballots.

Two candidates thrown off the ballot because of felony convictions have filed court challenges to the actions. Thomas said he delayed printing ballots because he hoped for an expedited court decision, but the first court date for the lawsuit isn't scheduled until Wednesday. So Thomas ordered ballots and expect them to arrive -- without the names of the barred candidates -- by Wednesday.

"My understanding was that if they were to go ahead and vote and ballots would have to be reordered and reprinted, it would be very disruptive to the whole electoral process," Thomas said. "I was hoping there would be some quick decision."

On Jan. 5, Phillip Matthews, a candidate in Ward 2, and Charles Koen and Gregory Walker, candidates in Ward 3, were removed from the ballot by a city electoral board based on their criminal history. Matthews and Koen filed challenges to their removal Jan. 10.

After checking with the Illinois State Board of Elections, Thomas decided to move ahead with ordering the ballots. Voters in Cairo may use an absentee ballot in person up to five days before the election if they will be out of town on election day. Illinois allows absentee ballots to be received by mail as late as election day if they are postmarked by the Monday before the election.

And early voting, which allows residents to cast ballots before election day without giving a reason, begins Feb. 5, Thomas said.

Voter registration for the Feb. 27 primary is open until Jan. 30, he added.

The situation in Cairo isn't unusual, said Steve Sturm, legal counsel for the state board of elections in Springfield, Ill. "It has happened many times that objection proceedings have extended into an absentee balloting period," he said. "And generally, jurisdictions are across the board on how to deal with this problem."

The factors local jurisdictions must weigh are the likelihood of a successful challenge, the need to get large numbers of ballots out to voters such as soldiers stationed overseas and the costs involved in reprinting ballots, Sturm said.

"It is a decision every local election authority must make at some time, and it isn't the first time or only time in this election that it has come up," Sturm said.

No one has called the elections board about being unable to get an absentee ballot, Sturm said, but there have been numerous inquiries regarding the objection hearings and the outcome. Those issues will be up to the courts to decide, he said.

"We have no authority over electoral boards or the conduct of local elections," Sturm said. "But we are willing to answer questions for citizens and election authorities."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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