The county Bureau of Election has posted all the sample ballots for this fall’s election. You can look up your ballot exactly as it will appear on the county’s website here. Note that not only is the first page of the ballot front and back, but you will also be receiving a second ballot page for judicial retentions. This is required by state law or the constitution, I can’t recall which. Please make sure to vote on the back as it includes our elections for township commissioner and tax collector among other local offices!

Also on the back of the ballot are candidates for our local election officers, these are the people responsible for running the precincts every Election Day. There are a number of locations where there will be attempts to write in people to run these offices. This week I’m mailing some residents in 5-1 to ask them to write-in Michael Bailey for Judge of Election (JoE) and Jacqueline Knight for Inspector of Election (IoE). Both of them are already serving in these roles, but didn’t receive enough write-ins in the primary to get on the general election ballot.

Other blanks include the 1-2 JoE , the 2-2 JoE and IoE, the 6-1 JoE and IoE, and the 6-2 JoE and IoE. There are supposed to be two IoE candidates in each precinct (the precinct is run by a JoE and two IoEs, one from each party), but there is only one precinct, 7-2, which has both a Republican and Democrat IoE running this year. This is pretty close to the number of vacancies four years ago though, so its a common problem. It can be tough to recruit in smaller precincts like 2-2 and 6-1. There is talk that the county may consolidate some precincts in 2023.