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Pritzker favors hearings after AVR “glitch”

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* Press conference today…


Citing upcoming elections, Rep. Avery Bourne calls for the suspension of the auto-voter registration until issues are fixed. #twill

— ILHouseGOP (@ilhousegop) January 22, 2020

* Gov. JB Pritzker said today that he supports legislative hearings into what went wrong at the secretary of state’s office and what has actually been done to fix it and prevent it from happening again. But he was also asked by a reporter if he had “ordered them to put [AVR] on hold?” The reporter didn’t specify who “them” would be. Pritzker’s response

I don’t have the legal ability to order them to put it on hold.

Yep.

That may be a question for the secretary of state, but he’s under a statutory mandate to operate the program and he claims the glitch was fixed a month ago.

The problem I have today is the lack of transparency from the SoS, the Board of Elections and the local election authorities who all knew about this “glitch” and didn’t speak up. Were they never going to tell us about it?

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:05 pm

Comments

  1. The beating of the underlings is about to commence.

    Comment by Huh? Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:23 pm

  2. Either Ms. Bourne knows statutorily Sec. White can’t stop the program and is pandering to seem smart and winning, or Ms. Bourne has no clue that Sec. White can’t stop the program which makes her pandering with a lack of knowledge of how things… work.

    She can choose.

    To the post,

    Hearings and a complete tick tock of when all was known, who all knew what, what decisions were made to correct, and finally why wasn’t this disclosed any sooner than it was.

    It’s one thing to find out what happened, and when, it’s quite another, and just as important, knowing the timetable and the actors involved, and the decisions they made, and the why.

    I can get canned pandering anywhere.

    The SGOP has approached this with great care and thought, and with a premise of looking for facts. That’s a prudent tact.

    Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:24 pm

  3. The SoS needs to answer these questions directly…if he can’t take charge of this situation, he needs to say who exactly in his office he has delegated this level of day-to-day management to.

    This is the second largest leadership role in the state when it comes to workforce, right behind the Governor. This office needs to modernize and increase its transparency (and public presence, overall).

    Comment by NIU Grad Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:25 pm

  4. “Either Ms. Bourne knows statutorily Sec. White can’t stop the program and is pandering to seem smart and winning, or Ms. Bourne has no clue that Sec. White can’t stop the program which makes her pandering with a lack of knowledge of how things… work.”

    I was getting annoyed at how happy everyone was at that press conference…they’re going to milk this as much as they can.

    Comment by NIU Grad Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:27 pm

  5. The problem records weren’t really AVR. The SOS letter, linked in yesterday’s CFax article, explains that only people who say they want to register are moved to the “signature pad” to answer the citizenship question. These folks were moved to the touchpad, where they indicated they weren’t citizens. So they seem to have answered yes they wanted to register, a choice that makes them standard run of the mill Motor Voter registrants, victimized not by AVR, but by flawed handling of data.

    The fact that they answered yes on registration makes it somewhat more remarkable that so few voted. It would seem either they thought at the time that they were entitled to register, or they misheard the question. Or their answers were misheard.

    But a close reading of the SOS letter also suggests that the signature pad did work by not allowing these registrants to sign. That may have helped alert them that not all was as it seemed. Was there an error or stop message that popped up?

    Though that reading may be too close. It’s not entirely clear what the SOS meant by a “programming error with regard to this final step.” Was the final step the one that prevented such info from being forwarded, or the step that prevented voters from signing?

    Comment by statehoss Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:48 pm

  6. SoS’ current process is an “opt-in” process where language issues and other miscommunications can still occur. The “opt out” process would’ve ideally only ve available to Real ID applicants that out forward info that confirms citizenship and eligiblity. This is why it’s so puzzling why SoS didn’t do this right from the start to prevent this possible mistake(s).

    Comment by Veil of Ignorance Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 2:58 pm

  7. If there are to be hearings, the Democrats should use them to highlight what a massive success AVR has been. Highlight the the clerical error has already been fixed and only led, allegedly, to 19 improper votes. Call as witnesses first-time voters who were helped by AVR. Dare the GOP to make the case for why the average voter should have to deal with more bureaucratic red tape.

    Comment by Quibbler Wednesday, Jan 22, 20 @ 3:07 pm

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