Will County Gazette

Will County Board District 3-elect Dan Butler is upset about how Will County Clerk’s Office has been handling ballots still being counted from the Nov. 8 election.

Butler, who was on that ballot, said he and others received several complaints of unobserved county workers who were allegedly allowed to be close enough to ballots to access them without oversight. 

“We have a lot of county park workers (who) were in there working Saturday and Sunday and a lot of people were upset that they were in there and they weren't allowing poll watchers to be in there,” Butler told Will County Gazette. “Now, technically they don't need poll watchers to watch what they're doing. Attorneys were called in, and they're going to FOIA all the workers from their locations where they were working that day. They're also FOIAing the cameras to watch the ballots.” 

Butler said people were concerned that the ballots could be tampered with "because of all the confusion there."

“The whole chain of evidence with those ballots needs to be tightened up,” he said. “I am just a candidate for County Board District 3. And I got the most votes. And, you know, I'd like to think that after they get this count done, that I won't lose.” 

Butler said he isn't making any accusations. 

“I'm just saying that there needs to be a secure line chain of evidence on those ballots,” he said.

The “chain of evidence” concerns are not unfounded as Illinois has a particularly ugly history when it comes to voter fraud. Historic journalism about Chicago's history of voter fraud has been compiled by the New York University Libraries. During former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's second year in power, 37 persons in Chicago were prosecuted for vote manipulation during the 1972 election cycle.

The concern of hanging onto a lead after polls close is a very real one. Just across county lines in DuPage County, former DuPage County Auditor Bob Grogan was defeated last year after Democrat vote bundlers dropped ballots at the clerk’s office. The mail-in ballots caused a 75-vote gap between Grogan and his Democrat opponent William White. In that instance, the DuPage County Clerk’s office was called into question for the way it conducted the election and not maintaining clean voter rolls.

The Republican Party has placed a heavy emphasis on election integrity. IL GOP Chair Don Tracy said the issue was the Illinois GOP's top priority as the Nov. 8 election approached.