Morgan County is combining voter precincts under a new Illinois law.
Morgan County Clerk Jill Waggener says that Senate Bill 536 allows counties to expand, eliminate, or consolidate voting precincts up to 1,200 registered voters per precinct: “What I went and did was looked at numbers of current precincts and consolidated them down to under that 1,200 registered voter number. No precinct will be going to another facility to vote. Where people voted in the last election, basically everybody will be going back to the same polling place. Some precinct numbers might change. Within the city of Jacksonville, we went from 18 precincts down to 12, which roughly the county will save about $16,000 by my consolidation there. Out in the county, we went from 40 precincts down to 20. Again, roughly, we are going to save about $10,000.”
Waggener says to watch the mail for new voter ID cards. She says it will contain information about new State elected officials as well as the new Congressional districts.
She says though that people aren’t voting for any different municipal or county seats: “The county and the city will still vote for the same people that we always did. We will have a new [State] Senator, Jil Tracy, who is from Adams County, and then, Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer’s lines changed just a little bit, so we will have a different State Representative for some of Morgan County.”
Waggener says the realignment of precincts was an effort to save county taxpayers’ money and not due to anything partisan. She says it also helps cure some anxiety for the county during each election cycle in the search to find election judges. The next election that Morgan County residents will vote in are primaries on June 28th.