Peoria Standard

Knox County District 3 board representative Pam Davidson appeared before a  House Ethics and Elections Committee hearing last month to show her support for a bill that would amend the election code to allow small counties to do away with their board of election commissioners. 

House Bill 2451 would allow the county board or county board of commissioners for counties with a population of less than100,000 to dissolve the county's municipal board of election commissioners and transfer its functions to the city clerk. It has been in committee since late April. 

"I am here to support [HB 2451] because, since 1908, they've had an election commission which was designed only for Galesburg but all the full funding comes from the county and that's truly not fair," Davidson told the committee. "Other cities and townships are paying and, like Rep. Hammond said, we have no oversight on any of this."

Davidson said that the election commission's website states that it will be accountable and non-biased, but the Galesburg election season is rife with issues, including duplicate reporting from separate vendors, often resulting in candidates believing they won the election when they didn't. 

With just 56,000 people in Knox County, Davidson affirmed that the election commission needs to go. The city clerk is an elected official chosen by taxpayers, while election commissioners are appointed by the board. 

"I think it would be very efficient," Davidson said of the prospect of election duties shifting to the county clerk. "It would always be accountable, it would keep things updated." 

Knox County Treasurer Robin Davis said that the City of Galesburg has had trouble with elections commission transparency in the past. Under Illinois law, municipal election commission's salaries and expenditures should be audited by the chief circuit judge, but the Galesburg election commission could not provide its most recent audit when asked, according to Davis. 

"The City of Galesburg did turn over all the funds that they had in the election commission to the election commissioners, who open their own checking account at a separate bank so those funds are not being audited by either the city or the county," Davis said. 

With the commissioners' salaries set without any input or control from the county board, Davidson and Davis pointed out the importance of salary transparency for county officials.  The commission board of Knox County allegedly increased the salaries of their directors by 10% and 20% after the county budget was adopted. 

"It's very hard on taxpayers, Davidson said. "So it is time for us to have one county-elected person and it should be our county clerk because he has been providing unbiased, great support and accountability to all our registered voters. I support having only one election commission which is under the county clerk.

The election commission won't tell the county how much unused money it has in its reserve, the treasurer said. She estimated that the county would save an excess of $50,000 in the first year of dissolving the board alone.

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Tim Butler (R-Springfiled) and Norine K. Hammond (R-Macomb).