Strategy to ensure the security of YOUR vote:
1) As soon as it becomes available (up to 90 days prior to Election Day), complete the official County Clerk’s Application for a one-time Vote-by-Mail (VBM) ballot, available from the County Election Authority office or online via the County website. Request a one-time only VBM ballot. Do NOT opt-in to the Permanent Vote-by-Mail list. Read all materials carefully– don’t be tricked into opting-in to Permanent VBM. Permanent VBM status ensures that a LIVE ballot will continue to be mailed to your address, even after you move or die. You do NOT want that to happen (see *Note A below). To apply for your one-time VBM ballot, use only the official form from your County Clerk/Election Authority – there are 3rd-party non-government organizations which do mass mailings of VBM applications to collect YOUR PERSONAL DATA.
2) Follow up to make sure you receive your ballot – you have “claimed your name“ – no one else can vote YOUR ballot. You don’t want to show up to vote in person only to be told that someone has already voted under your name using a VBM ballot. This happened across the nation in the 2020 election. If you are told you already voted when you show up to vote and you know you have not voted, report it to law enforcement. Visit your Election Authority in-person and ask: how/when/where did they record you as having voted? If EA indicates you voted by mail, ask EA, “To what address did you mail my ballot? Please show me the VBM Ballot application requesting my ballot”. Ask EA to show you all signatures on the application for your VBM ballot, on your voter registration and voting records in their possession. Take documented proof of what you are shown to give to law enforcement. Do not be aggressive and angry with your EA – they may have been unwittingly duped. You need the EA’s help and cooperation with law enforcement.
3) Take your VBM ballot with you to an Early Voting location and vote in person as early as possible. When you show up to vote in person (not before), write “SURRENDERED” on both sides of your VBM ballot and on the VBM return envelope. Tell the Election Judge that you want to vote a LIVE ballot in-person. If the Election Judge tries to tell you that you must use your VBM ballot, calmly tell the EJ that is NOT THE LAW. The IL Election Code allows you to SURRENDER your VBM ballot and vote a LIVE ballot (10 ILCS 5/17-9, Ch. 46, par. 17-9). Watch to make sure the Election Judge secures your VBM ballot in a “Spoiled Ballot Envelope” at the polling location. You do not want your un-marked VBM ballot to “sprout legs” and “wander off” to be voted by a nefarious character.
4) Vote a regular, live ballot which you can feed through the tabulator yourself to ensure that it has been tabulated. You have “secured your vote“!
5) If something unexpected happens and you cannot vote in person, you can still mark your ballot and you, a family member or a friend can drop it in a secure drop box before the polls close on Election Day. Or, that friend or family member can put it in a secure drop box inside a polling location before it closes. In this case, make sure both you and the person authorized to deliver the ballot complete the authorization printed on the exterior envelope supplied by an election authority for the return of the vote by mail ballot. If someone else delivers your ballot, the law requires that authorization be filled out.
6) DO NOT ENTRUST YOUR BALLOT TO THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE. The USPS has proven itself extremely unreliable and not trustworthy for ballot handling. We have discovered that your ballot, mailed locally, may travel to other states before it is finally delivered to your local Election Authority to be counted! Ballots mailed using the USPS have absolutely NO CHAIN OF CUSTODY and can easily be waylaid or tampered with.
7) Help family, friends and neighbors to get their ballots and vote. In Illinois, you can help to make sure those ballots are delivered to be tabulated. (*See notes below).
8) In many counties, you can track the status of your ballot by checking on your local County Clerk/Election Authority website. Some Illinois counties also use BallotTrax (https://wheresmyballot.com)
*Note A: If you have already signed up for permanent vote by mail, wait until after the election and send a letter to your election authority, requesting that you be removed. Per IL Election Code 10 ILCS 5/19-2.
WHATEVER VOTING METHOD YOU CHOOSE, ALWAYS VOTE!!
EVERY U.S. CITIZEN’S LEGAL VOTE MATTERS.
Ballot Gathering
aka “ballot harvesting”
*FROM BALLOTPEDIA:
Illinois law allows vote-by-mail ballots to be delivered in person by any person the voter authorizes or by a company licensed as a motor carrier of property by the state. In the case of voters who are physically incapacitated or hospitalized, an employee of the facility the voter is in may place the ballot in the mail.
Illinois law states the voter must do the following after sealing their absentee ballot in the return envelope:
| “ | The voter shall then endorse his certificate upon the back of the envelope and the envelope shall be mailed in person by such voter, postage prepaid, to the election authority issuing the ballot or, if more convenient, it may be delivered in person, by either the voter or by any person authorized by the voter, or by a company licensed as a motor carrier of property by the Illinois Commerce Commission under the Illinois Commercial Transportation Law, which is engaged in the business of making deliveries. It shall be unlawful for any person not the voter or a person authorized by the voter to take the ballot and ballot envelope of a voter for deposit into the mail unless the ballot has been issued pursuant to application by a physically incapacitated elector under Section 3-3 or a hospitalized voter under Section 19-13, in which case any employee or person under the direction of the facility in which the elector or voter is located may deposit the ballot and ballot envelope into the mail. If the voter authorized a person to deliver the ballot to the election authority, the voter and the person authorized to deliver the ballot shall complete the authorization printed on the exterior envelope supplied by an election authority for the return of the vote by mail ballot.[3] | ” |
Illinois law also contains a section for absentee voting by individuals who have been “admitted to a hospital, nursing home, or rehabilitation center due to an illness or physical injury not more than 14 days before an election.” Such voters may have anyone registered to vote in the same precinct as them or a legal relative to obtain and return their mail ballot.
The law states, “Upon receipt of the vote by mail ballot, the admitted voter shall mark the ballot in secret and subscribe to the certifications on the vote by mail ballot return envelope. After depositing the ballot in the return envelope and securely sealing the envelope, such voter shall give the envelope to the precinct voter or the relative who shall deliver it to the election authority in sufficient time for the ballot to be delivered by the election authority to the election authority’s central ballot counting location before 7 p.m. on election day.”