Here’s what happened when Madison County sent incorrect ballots to voters in this precinct
Madison County mistakenly sent ballots that included six judicial candidates for the Nov. 8 election to residents in one Edwardsville precinct, but County Clerk Debbie Ming Mendoza said efforts are underway to correct the mistake.
Some residents of Precinct 3 received ballots that incorrectly listed judicial candidates in the newly created Subcircuit 1 of the 3rd Judicial Circuit. However, this precinct is not located in Subcircuit 1.
Ming Mendoza, who is a Democrat, said in a letter to the three Republican judicial candidates that “no votes originating outside of” Subcircuit 1 will be counted in the Nov. 8 election.
The Republican judicial candidates, Judge Amy Sholar, Judge Christopher Threlkeld and Tim Berkley, had sent Ming Mendoza a letter raising concerns about the incorrect ballots and they asked for her response.
The three Democratic candidates are A. Ryan Jumper, Ebony Huddleston and John Barry Julian.
Ming Mendoza could not be reached for comment for this article but her office provided documents regarding the incorrect ballots.
Incorrect ballots
The Republican judicial candidates said in their letter to Ming Mendoza that a volunteer campaign worker found the error when he was looking for a map in his effort to contact Edwardsville voters on the candidates’ behalf.
Ming Mendoza wrote the candidates to say that she immediately took action to correct the problem shortly after she heard about it on Wednesday, Oct. 26.
Officials last week found that 15 people in Precinct 3 had already voted using the incorrect ballots.
Ming Mendoza said a “bi-partisan group of election judges and poll watchers” would review the process to make sure these 15 ballots did not include votes for the Subcircuit 1 candidates.
“To be clear: no curing of any ballot or exclusion of any erroneously-cast votes from the Official Canvas will occur without notice and observation by a bi-partisan group of election judges and poll watchers and approval from the State’s Attorney and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office,” Ming Mendoza wrote.
Ming Mendoza also said efforts were taken to prevent any additional Precinct 3 voters from using the incorrect ballot.
Deb Detmers, the campaign manager for Sholar, said she was speaking on behalf of Sholar as well as Threlkeld and Berkley on the incorrect ballot issue and she said that a process used on Tuesday to correct the problem was different than what Ming Mendoza had outlined in her letter to the candidates.
Ming Mendoza had said a new ballot would be created for the voters who had used the incorrect ballots, but Detmers said the process used on Tuesday allowed the original ballots to be used with a plan that the Subcircuit 1 votes would not be counted.
“When we’re not transparent in these matters, it certainly leads to questions,” Detmers said in an interview Wednesday.
“I think they are trying to remedy the situation and I appreciate that,” Detmers said. “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, though.”
Also, Detmers said the candidates want a complete audit of the Subcircuit 1 map.
The Subcircuit 1 map used by the clerk’s office had incorrectly included 160 addresses in Precinct 3 in Edwardsville.
Berkley is facing Jumper in the 3rd Judicial Circuit Judge (Mudge vacancy) race; Julian is facing Threlkeld in the 3rd Judicial Circuit Judge (Dugan vacancy) race; and Huddleston is facing Sholar in the 3rd Judicial Circuit Judge (Tognarelli vacancy) race.
New subcircuit maps
In her letter, Ming Mendoza said “this mistake is regrettable” in reference to the Precinct 3 residents getting the incorrect ballot.
“As we all know, the General Assembly imposed a very short timeframe to implement these entirely new subcircuit boundaries for the November 8, 2022 general election,” she wrote.
Sholar and Threlkeld had to move earlier this year so they could establish residency in the new subcircuit to be eligible to run in the Nov. 8 election since Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law in January creating subcircuits in the 3rd Judicial Circuit, which covers Madison and Bond counties.
Opponents of the law say it’s an example of gerrymandering to help Democratic candidates, while supporters say the subcircuits are designed to give all areas of the circuit representation.
Detmers said Subcircuit 1 in Madison County includes Granite City, Alton and Venice.
“It’s primarily a Democratic district but that doesn’t mean we aren’t’ running campaigns, because we are and that doesn’t mean we’re giving up, because we are not,” she said.
Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine has filed a lawsuit alleging the subcircuit law is unconstitutional and his appeal in the case is pending before the Illinois Supreme Court.
Linda Andreas, the Republican candidate running against Ming Mendoza in the county clerk’s race, criticized Ming Mendoza for the ballots being mistakenly sent out and said that voters would be “disenfranchised.”
Ming Mendoza wrote in her letter that no residents from outside Subcircuit 1 will cast votes for the Subcircuit 1 candidates.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
