After high voter turnout and incomplete paperwork contributed to two-hour lines at the Evanston Public Library on Tuesday, City Clerk Mary Morris said she would re-evaluate precinct boundaries and consider adding polling places on Northwestern’s campus.
More students registered to vote this year in Illinois instead of voting by absentee ballot in their home states, Morris said. A campuswide voter registration drive overwhelmed the Cook County clerk’s office, which was unable to process the registration forms in time for the election, she said.
“When I saw those cards that were brought over here from the Democratic Party and Northwestern, I knew there would be trouble,” she said. “You can predict it.”
Student groups turned in about 1,000 voter registration forms on the Oct. 10 deadline, but the county clerk’s office could not process the registration forms in time for the election, said county clerk spokesman Scott Burnham.
On Tuesday, election judges at the Evanston library turned away some students because they were not on the list, even though they had already registered to vote. Burnham said volunteers did not get an accurate list until 3:30 p.m.
Associated Student Government President Adam Humann, who led NU’s voter registration drive, blamed the delay on the county clerk’s office and said the incident demonstrates the need for another polling place on campus.
“Maybe we just did too good a job registering people,” said Humann, a Weinberg senior. “But it’s annoying that we did all this work to get people registered and the county doesn’t come through. How is that supposed to make people feel better about the political process?”
Morris said the city and the county would review the location of polling places and the number of people registered to vote at each.
Students living in the Sixth Precinct, which includes South Campus and parts of downtown Evanston, are required to vote at the library. The precinct, however, is more than twice as large as any other Evanston precinct and is nearly three times the size of an average precinct, Burnham said.
Several students walked out Tuesday when they saw the lines winding around the library’s lobby. Others skipped classes, work and appointments to wait in line to vote.
“It’s a very unfortunate situation,” Morris said. “Anyone who registers to vote and takes that responsibility should feel like they can vote without too much trouble.”
Lucile Krasnow, NU’s community relations specialist who helped the student groups with their voter registration drive, said the Election Day difficulties undermined efforts to engage young voters in the election. She said she was encouraged by students who decided to wait hours to cast their ballots, but said she would try to compile names of those who had problems and pass that information along to the county.
“We were trying to focus on the concept that, historically, 18- to 20-year-olds have not voted,” she said. “What this campus has clearly demonstrated is that students want to turn out to vote. That part is a real positive.”
