By PORTER McNEIL

No election reform: Bad timing or good politics?

"... The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things, of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings."

Through the Looking Glass

"I THOUGHT I had seen some bizarre things in Illinois politics .... But [they] pale in comparison to what's happened this year." That's Ron Michaelson, executive director of the State Board of Elections, talking about the March primary and its aftermath. Certainly it's strange to know that two followers of right-wing extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. are running for office on the Democratic ticket and that people are bombarding the State Board of Elections with questions no one ever thought of asking before. What do you do about "overvote"? Will the Illinois Democrats qualify as a party next year?

Strange, too, is the failure of the General Assembly to pass election reform legislation this session to fill the void in the law on recounting statewide elections. It's been three years since the court struck down the recount statute, and the November election will be held without a new one.

Democrats have reason to be cautious in making any election law changes, and the desire, especially by the House Democratic leadership, to keep tight control over election legislation won out during the session. While that may represent impressive politics, it also leaves the state facing a possible replay without remedy of the 1982 general election when just over 5,000 votes separated Gov. James R. Thompson from Adlai E. Stevenson III, and the Supreme Court's decision prevented a recount. As it stands now, a candidate for statewide office who loses in a close election has no way to challenge the results.

The bill to establish new recount procedures died in the House Rules Committee, as did just about every other election bill proposed this session. The victims included bills to deal with potential computer foulups and/or fraud, a controversial "Boss judge" bill ostensibly aimed at curbing election fraud in Chicago but possibly a covert attempt at curbing Mayor Harold Washington, and a host of other proposals, some of them perennial reform measures and some specific responses to the March 18 Democratic primary debacle.

The Democratic House leadership said it was not letting election bills out because 1986 is a year in which the legislature is supposed to deal only with "emergency" legislation. But there were too many "nonemergency" bills let free for that explanation to persuade. "I believe that vote fraud is a problem that should be addressed, more so in an election year than in a nonelection year. The legislature saw fit to give itself a pay raise; it saw fit to increase members' district allowance and to inflate Build Illinois; but it didn't want to pass anti-vote fraud legislation. I don't understand the logic of it," said Sen. Walter W. Dudycz (R-7, Chicago), sponsor of eight bills related to computers and elections held back by the Senate Democratic leadership.

The logic, of course, was political. Some Republicans and Michaelson accused the Democratic House leadership of bottling up the legislation for political reasons. "I'm guessing there's some type of arrangement between the Democratic leadership and elements of Chicago politics to not permit any election bills out this year," said Rep. Myron J. Olson (R-70, Dixon), "because anytime an election bill hits the floor then there's potential for mischief." Mischief means using any bill on a specific topic, in this case elections, as a vehicle for slipping in last-minute legislation not contained in the original bill yet under the same general topic. Explained Rep. Ken Slater (R-95, Macomb), co-sponsor of the recount bill, "There was an attempt on the part of leadership to make sure that two areas wouldn't fall out of their control: elections and insurance."

Political mischief

Steve Brown, press secretary to House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D-30, Chicago), agreed that the recount bill, however important its passage may have been, was held in Rules Committee for political reasons. "If that bill were considered on its merits," said Brown,''there might have been a purpose to pass it, but the bill would've had to go through the amendment process .... and there were goodly numbers of other very controversial ideas that could have been advanced." Having an election bill floating around would be "fraught with all kinds of potential mischief," he explained, and said that 1987 would be a better year in which to consider election reform. Political mischief? Brown said, "There were a number of people talking about changing the system for electing a mayor in Chicago." The Chicago mayoral election is scheduled for early 1987.

For the record, the recount bill, S.B. 1961, passed the Senate, but remained in House Rules Committee. Sponsors were Sens. John A. D'Arco (D-10. Chicago) and David N. Barkhausen (R-30, Lake Forest) and Reps. John J. Cullerton (D-7, Chicago) and Slater.

If Illinois has another cliffhanger like the 1982 gubernatorial election, "there would be no resolution," said State Board of Elections director Michaelson.''If a candidate won by one vote, that would be final," he said. "The losing candidate could not file any kind of an election contest or appeal. We're going to have to cross our fingers that there won't be a close election."

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Michaelson said that he was disappointed. He believes that the General Assembly should have realized that the bill qualified as emergency legislation and had to be passed before the fall election. But some members of the legislature blame the state board for waiting too long to introduce the bills and for poor legislative liaison work.

Specifically, legislators criticized the state board for poor timing and attitude, "Where have they been for the last three years?" asked Rep. Olson, Republican leader on the House Elections Committee, who said he would probably support the bill. "I would have thought it would have been a premiere issue in '83, '84 or '85. Now, all of a sudden, they've got to have it. I don't think we should vote for any election bill in haste. I disagree with the timing of it. I think the state board has become a little fiefdom and I don't think they're particularly responsive."

Steve Brown of Speaker Madigan's staff said that although the recount bill and other election reform lulls merit the attention of the General Assembly, "if the state board were really sincere with what they're saying, certainly this is something that could have been taken up in [earlier] sessions of the General Assembly. We were here."

Michaelson admitted that this was the first year the state board had made a "serious attempt" at passing the recount bill. He also said that lawyers at the State Board of Elections had had difficulty coming up with a bill before this year, but he said that nevertheless. "certainly lawmakers would recognize that to have something on the books before the '86 elections is just an imperative."

The event that made election history in Illinois and led to the pressure for new statewide procedures for recounting votes was the 1982 reelection of Gov. Thompson. The election was not over on election day. Days went by as the last, scattered precints were tallied. When all the votes were finally counted, Thompson had apparently defeated Stevenson by 5,074 votes. Stevenson demanded a statewide recount in a petition filed with the Illinois Supreme Court. Stevenson's volunteers had canvassed "sample" precincts in 70 of Illinois' 102 counties and had concluded that Stevenson's totals would have been 4,664 votes higher as a result of the samples alone. The petition argued that the result of the election would have changed if all the precincts were recounted. But the Supreme Court issued a bitterly divided (4-3) opinion rejecting not only Stevenson's petition but also the recount statute on which Stevenson had based his petition. The high court said that Illinois' statewide election recount procedures, passed by the General Assembly in 1977, were unconstitutional. The decision was based on an interpretation of Article V, section 5 of the Illinois Constitution, which says: "Election contests shall be decided by the courts in a manner provided by the law." Specifically, the state's high court invalidated the law requiring the Supreme Court to appoint three circuit court judges to serve as a state election contest panel to hear evidence and decide all issues. The court ruled that the legislature did not have the power to establish new courts, and furthermore, the panel was not a "court" as defined by the Constitution. The dissenters expressed concern that the decision, leaving candidates with no constitutional vehicle to challenge the results of an election, would result in a denial of due process. In a pointed statement about the effects of denying Stevenson a recount in 1982, the dissenters said, "It will always be uncertain what was the will of the people in the gubernatorial election of 1982."

After that 1983 decision, editorials surfaced calling on the General Assembly to come up with a recount procedure that was constitutionally correct. The General Assembly surely would do something in time for the 1986 election, columnists wrote. In addition, the Governor's Commission on Election Reform endorsed the effort to put in place a new recount bill in its May 1985 report to Gov. Thompson.

This year the state board made a serious attempt to pass such a bill, S.B. 1961, which eliminated the election contest panel the 1983 high court objected to and provided the Supreme Court with original jurisdiction to handle the recount.

Boss judge bill

Another election reform victim, the administrative judge bill, S.B. 2082, also sailed through the Senate but got trapped in the House Rules Committee. Sponsored by Sens. Edward A. Nedza ( D-5, Chicago) and Dudycz, the so-called boss judge bill was part of the 15-bill package introduced in April by the Senate Republican Task Force on Vote Fraud. The administrative judge bill, which has been introduced in various forms since 1979, was introduced in response to a problem that all sides acknowledge — a lack of trained election judges to be in charge of the polling places, particularly in the city of Chicago.

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The bill provided for paid administrative judges and deputy administrative judges to be selected by the two Cook County party chairmen and appointed by the county clerk or Chicago Board of Election commissioners. The administrative judge would be a member of the majority party in the precinct, the deputy judge from the minority party. Each would serve a four-year term and be responsible for coordinating activities during election day, registering voters on precinct registration day and restoring voters to the precinct registry when their removal was a mistake.

Under present law, both precinct captains and election judges share the responsibility of running the polling places on election day. The election judge enjoys no administrative superiority over the precinct captains, which is what S.B. 2082 would have provided. Many feel that precinct captains actually control the events on election day and, according to some, that has led to widespread vote fraud in Chicago. For example, the report of the special grand jury of the U.S. District Court investigating alleged vote fraud in the 1982 election recommended that the precinct captain have no role in the way the canvass or election is run because there was abundant evidence of fraud by the captains. The Governor's Commission on Election Reform also endorsed a similar change.

Is there a potential for computer
screw-ups this November. . .? Yes, according to Michaelson

Long-time proponents like Michael E. Lavelle, chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, say that the bill is probably the most important weapon against vote fraud and inefficiently run elections. Dudycz, bill co-sponsor and chairman of the Senate GOP vote fraud task force, says his drive to pass the bill stems from his somewhat "naive" belief in "good government and clean elections." Moreover, as a former policeman in Chicago working at the precinct polling spots he witnessed election judges being told what to do by precinct captains.

Although nearly everyone agrees on the need for better trained and paid election judges, opponents, led by the Chicago Council of Lawyers, favor the appointment of nonpartisan judges by groups like the League of Women Voters; they don't want to grant the party chairmen and the board of elections the power to appoint these so-called Super Judges. Jan Czarnik, lobbyist for the Chicago Council of Lawyers, claimed that the bill was an attempt to "steal the mayoral election from Harold Washington." She said, "This [bill] allows [Cook County GOP party chairman Donald] Totten and [Cook County Democratic party chairman Edward] Vrdolyak the power to send Michael E. Lavelle their people. And then Lavelle will give those people control over registration and the conduct of elections." Calling this a "hack bill," Czarnik said that election judges should be chosen by nonpartisan individuals.

Computer mischief

Election experts at the state and federal level are deeply concerned about the possibilities inherent in computerized voting systems for fraud by tampering or for simple human error. Illinois has experienced few problems so far, but the upcoming general election in which Democrats will be asked to vote for candidates of two different parties (the regular Democratic party slate and three candidates of Stevenson's Solidarity Illinois Party) has the chief of the State Board of Elections concerned.

The GOP task force introduced several legislative measures in April aimed at regulating computer hardware and software used in elections, but none made it out of the Senate. The legislation proposed that ballot proofs and computer programs be filed with the state board and that the state board be allowed to recount at random 5 percent of the ballots on a different computer after an election. The measures would have given the state board sharply increased authority to test computerized vote-counting systems before an election; currently, the state board is restricted to testing only 10 percent of the vote-counting systems before an election.

Is there a potential for computer screw-ups this November, especially since the Democratic strategy will be to punch three spots on the ballot, instead of the normal one straight-party vote? Yes, according to Michaelson. The state board has been working to make sure that the vote-counting systems in every county around the state are correctly programmed and pretested for possible problems. In July he said that a committee of election computer vendors and county clerks was putting together a handbook of procedures for testing vote-counting systems "to see if we can arrive at an agreement between the vendors and all the county clerks in terms of how to handle what is potentially a very serious problem."

The potential problems surround the Democratic party's voting strategy. Michaelson said the constant topic at state board meetings has been the issuance of new rules about the vote-counting systems around the state. One of the recent resolutions passed by the board and sent to election officials dealt with the "overvote" scenario. That is, if a voter mistakenly casts two votes — one straight-party vote for the Democratic party and the other a straight-party vote for Stevenson's Solidarity Illinois Party — how would the vote be counted? The state board concluded that such an overvote would result in no votes for the statewide candidates on either of the two tickets, but that the votes for judicial and legislative candidates would be counted because there probably will be no candidates of the Solidarity Illinois Party in those spots on the ballot.

But that isn't the only confusing scenario for which a state board ruling is needed well before the November election. "What if someone writes in a vote for Adlai Stevenson, Governor, Democrat. How would that be counted?" mused Michaelson. That's an example of another type of issue we haven't even resolved yet, but these kinds of things are popping up everywhere, and it's going to be our job to resolve them and then instruct the election authorities and their vendors programming the vote-counting systems to all do it the same way." He said his overriding concern is that the people who are going to do the computer programming all operate under the same rules and assumptions. "We have to make sure there's uniformity in all the counties in terms of how the vote count systems are going to be programmed."

Michaelson said competition is an incentive for computer supply companies to avoid making programming mistakes. "You have numerous supply companies out there, so they have a vested interest not to screw up because they're going to lose their contracts,'' he said. As the election draws closer, state board officials will run about 250 sample ballots through the various vote-counting systems, according to Michaelson. Since the state board began random checking a few years ago, it has discovered, and corrected before the elections, problems with about 30 percent of the vote-counting systems. Michaelson said he will push again in 1987 for legislation to allow the state board unlimited checks of computer election systems.

Another LaRouchian invasion?

Election reform also encompasses the rules by which each of two major political parties in Illinois operates. The Democrats, perhaps more than the Republicans, might be wondering what they might do to cut down the odds that another debacle like this year's primary won't happen in 1988 or beyond. As of this writing (July 16), State Democratic Chairman and Sen. Vince Denuzio (D-49. Carlinville) admits that party officials have "been kicking several things around," but it would be "premature to be mentioning them." Senate Minority Leader James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale) has one suggestion for the Democrats. With enactment of P.A 84-0017 in 1985, a political party may elect its state central committeemen at county conventions rather than in the primary election. Philip said that he will try to have the GOP adopt the rule in time for the 1988 elections. He believes that since the committeemen serve primarily party functions, they should be elected by party activists. One of the best reasons for a party to adopt the convention rule, according to Philip, is prevention of surprise victories such as the Democrats experienced with two LaRouche followers. "If people don't know who their lieutenant governor and secretary of state candidates are, then surely they don't know about their state central committeemen," he said, But Demuzio opposes the idea. "That's a terrible bill," he said. "That's a party position that ought to be decided by the voters in the Democratic party .... [but] I want to thank him for his suggestion, I'm sure glad Pate's so worried about our party."

Philip maintains that the Democratic party is more likely to experience future LaRouchian-type situations, but he admitted that the GOP is not immune to a similar misfortune. "Democrats tend to have the fringe candidates . . . the John Birchers . . . the extreme right and extreme left, while we're more in the middle," he said. Demuzio laughed at Philip's comments, saying, "We don't have a lock on those folks [LaRouche candidates]. They are also in their party."

Election first, then reform

Whatever the pundits and party officials may be saying about this year's strange politics, the fact remains that election reform legislation aimed at avoiding possible problems in this fall's election has fallen victim to politics, to the election itself and to the politics involved in the 1987 Chicago mayoral election.

Reform may come next spring, but meanwhile, the election code is being challenged by circumstances. Described by one Senate staffer as a somewhat incoherent patchwork of special interest laws, the code may need more extensive revision. The LaRouchian invasion of Stevenson's election campaign created a whole new set of circumstances and a seemingly endless stream of questions for the legal staff of the State Board of Elections. Will the Democrats have to fill the empty gubernatorial spot on the ticket vacated by Stevenson? If the Democrats don't fill the vacancy and receive less than 5 percent of the vote in November, will their party status be affected? If voters mistakenly punch a straight-party vote for both the Democratic party and Stevenson's Solidarity Illinois Party, how will the votes be counted? Will the name of Stevenson's new party be challenged and thrown out because there is already a local political party named "Solidarity" in Chicago?

As soon as the board answers one question, another is asked. It could be that after the election, some will wind up in court.

"This situation has created more questions which are unanswered in the election code, [and] I suppose it has highlighted the need for a sweeping review and revision of the election code," said Michaelson. He said that legislators have known for years that a revision of the code is necessary, but "they realize it's such a big job and there's always something more important that takes priority .... Now I think the time has come."

As unusual as Illinois elections are this year and as tense as Chicago's may be next year, the time may truly have come, as the Walrus said, to talk of many things, including cabbages and kings.

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