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Home » News » Archives » ACLU Agreements Spell Out End of Punch Card Voting System in Illinois
ACLU Agreements Spell Out End of Punch Card Voting System in Illinois Agreements in Federal Court Spell End to Failed Punch Card Voting System in Illinois CHICAGO - Voters in future Illinois primary and general elections will go to the polls with more confidence in the system used to record and count their votes as a result of comprehensive settlement agreements presented to a federal judge in Chicago today in lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund against seven local election jurisdictions, including the state�s largest voting districts in Chicago and Cook County and the Illinois State Board of Elections. The agreements commit election officials in the specific voting districts to taking immediate steps toward scrapping the flawed punch card ballot system in favor of newer, more accurate and reliable technology in time for the statewide primary election in March 2006. The agreements also will lead to the elimination of optical scan voting systems that fail to provide voters notice of errors in their ballots and an opportunity to fix the problem on the ballot. Finally, the Illinois State Board of Elections agreed in the court filings today to take steps necessary to secure the funds for this transition. �Today�s inclusive agreements insure the retirement of the outdated, error-prone punch card voting system that has left uncounted the votes of thousands of citizens in recent national and statewide elections,� said Harvey Grossman, Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. �The punch card system had a particularly egregious impact in predominantly minority voting districts and needs to be eliminated. These agreements jump start the progress toward replacing the error-prone system for recording and counting votes in our state.� The agreements filed with United States District Court Judge Amy J. St. Eve resolve two lawsuits filed after the November 2000 Presidential election that turned the phrase �dimpled chad� into a household term. In that election, more than 120,000 votes for President in Cook County were not counted, more than six percent (6%) of all the ballots cast in the county. The percentage of votes not counted was dramatically higher in precincts with a high percentage of minority voters. The ballot error rate in downstate Alexander County was 7% for the same election. These high error rates were especially disturbing when compared to error rates of less than 1% in voting districts throughout the state that used new, more reliable optical scan technology with error notification. In response to these alarming figures, the ACLU of Illinois and MALDEF filed separate lawsuits in 2001 on behalf of all voters in several voting districts using error-prone election systems, and classes of African-American and Latino voters in these districts. The lawsuits, Tiimuel Black v. William McGuffage and Miguel del Valle v. William McGuffage, charged that use of these inferior systems violated provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Settlement agreements entered today cover seven specific voting districts: the City of Chicago, Cook County, East St. Louis, Alexander County, Sangamon County, Will County and Whiteside County. These jurisdictions intend to implement a new voting system by the statewide primary election scheduled for March 2006. The Illinois State Board of Elections has agreed to seek to obtain funds to purchase new voting systems. The ACLU of Illinois hailed today�s agreements for bringing an end to potentially long and contentious litigation and moving directly to address the fundamental issues involved in its 2001 lawsuit. �The right to vote in the most fundamental right in our democracy,� added the ACLU�s Grossman. �Dumping a system that did not accurately record and count the votes of thousands of fellow citizens is a victory not for any organization or advocate, it is a triumph for our system of government and the people of Illinois.� |
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