The election isn’t final yet. Mail-in votes could flip these tight St. Clair County races

Some races from Tuesday’s election have margins as razor-thin as the Belleville City Council race of 2019, when one candidate had a seven-vote lead on election night but ended up losing by three votes after mail-in ballots were counted.

The results of this year’s close races could be similarly impacted on April 20 when late-arriving ballots and provisional ballots are counted after a mandatory 14-day waiting period. According to the unofficial results released late Tuesday, the close races include the following:

Belleville close election results:

▪ In the Belleville City Council Ward 2 race, Jamie Eros had 149 votes for an eight-vote lead over Michael Buettner, who had 141 votes, and a 10-vote lead over Randy Randolph, who had 139 votes.

Township close election results:

▪ In the Canteen Township supervisor race, Debbie Moore had 787 votes for a two-vote lead over Norman Miller, who had 785 votes.

▪ In the Stookey Township trustee race, four seats were open on the board and three candidates were well ahead. In the fourth open seat, however, Daniel Barger’s 544 votes give him just a three-vote lead over Ryan Stookey, who had 541 votes.

Illinois law calls for election officials to wait 14 days to receive and hold ballots that were not counted on Tuesday night. So this year, these ballots will be tabulated on April 20. Once those results are announced, it’s up the losing candidate to decide whether to challenge the count.

“That’s when they can take action on the results,” St. Clair County Clerk Tom Holbrook said of the candidates trailing in the vote count on April 20. “We’ll know on the 20th. They can’t do anything until we get all this done.”

Holbrook said the ballots that were deposited in a dropbox in front of the courthouse by 7 p.m. Tuesday and mail-in ballots received on Tuesday were not tallied Tuesday night.

Those ballots, which totaled about 150 countywide as of Wednesday morning, will be counted on April 20, Holbrook said.

Also on April 20, the clerk’s office will count provisional ballots and the mail-in ballots received between April 7 and April 20 and correctly postmarked by April 6. Provisional ballots include ones in which an election judge had a question about a voter or a ballot on Election Day.

For the candidates who have a lead of 10 or fewer voters on Election Day, they can look at the Belleville City Council Ward 6 race in 2019 to see what can happen to a narrow lead.

In that city election, Ward 6 Alderman Chris Rothweiler was trailing by seven votes on the night of the election, but after the mail-in ballots were counted two weeks later, he took a three-vote victory over Andy Gaa, 313-310.

Gaa challenged the final vote total with a petition for discovery recount, but the vote total did not change after the ballots in one precinct were reviewed.

Madison County also will count mail-in and provisional ballots on April 20.

Mike Koziatek

Belleville News-Democrat

Mike Koziatek is a former journalist for the Belleville News-Democrat