Or why I trust election results

While I was on my big road trip in September, I got to see political ads from places where the races are hotter–and PACS and people are spending way more money–than they are near me.

And I know some people are distrustful of the election process. Frankly, I’m not. And here’s why.

I started covering elections before I was old enough to vote. I also got to help in the preparation for a community college referendum.

For the referendum, the college had to foot the bill so part of my job was counting–exactly–the paper ballots for each polling place in the district. It was tedious work, but we had to be precise because we had to ensure that there could be no cheating. No mistakes. No chance for election fraud.

A few years later, I started covering elections in my first jobs. I liked setting up questionnaires for candidates and running them so voters could compare the answers. And I got to show up at one courthouse or another on election night to collect the vote totals.

When a friend of mine took a new job, he recommended me for a national news service that collected election night totals for wire services, as well as print and broadcast media outlets. I never minded waiting until after midnight for the final counts.

It was on election nights, back when a room full of journalists and freelancers would sit around a table in a crowded room, vying to be the first to grab one of the half-dozen phones–back in the landline days–that I learned about election delays and tallying problems.

We learned that the closes polling places to the clerk’s office would usually get counted first. The amounts could be so tiny they would be swallowed up in the later, bigger polling place results.

I learned about snags with voting machines that could slow the counting by long stretches of time while people in the counting room would work to fix whatever jammed one machine or another.

I was never in the counting room, but I accepted the explanations the clerk’s office gave us for the slowdown in releasing results.

I understood that the results, while accurate, didn’t include write-in votes. Those got tallied last and didn’t usually amount to much. Those totals, in fact, were unofficial. They wouldn’t become official until the governmental units–city councils, village boards, school districts, county boards, and so forth–accepted them by the end of November. I can remember going to a few meetings at the end of the month that were scheduled especially to accept the vote counts and determine who (or what referendum) won or lost.

It was that local approval of votes that got passed on to state officials so lists of the folks in charge of our many pieces of government would be accurate.

It was those county results in presidential and Congressional elections that would go on to the state voting authorities to be accepted by them and passed up the ladder to Washington. Illinois’s vote certification day is Dec. 4, 2026. (For other states, check Ballotpedia.)

Congress is scheduled to convene on Jan. 3, 2027, to seat the new House and Senate members.

At that point, the election is official. And over.

Maybe I’m lucky to have lived my entire life in Illinois, and to have had a chance to meet and get to know quite a few county clerks in my newspaper work. But I have yet to meet one who hasn’t taken her or his job seriously when it comes to making sure elections are absolutely fair and error-free.

I even got to hear a presentation–through the League of Women Voters–from the Illinois Election Commission about what they do with the results and how they work to ensure the elections in my state are accurate.

I also have friends from around the state–including in Chicago and Cook County–and I have yet to hear any stories of proven election fraud or of attempts to subvert the process.

Sure, my information is anecdotal. I’ve never looked into voter fraud in any kind of scientific or rigorous way. But my reporting goes back way into the last century. And despite being out of the election coverage loop, I have yet to hear that anything untoward or illegal has happened in my area.

And I am willing to extend my trust to the rest of the country. (And to today’s media and election oversight groups to verify my trust.)

If you want to know more about who runs the elections in your area, I recommend the League of Women Voters as a starting point. And most county clerks and other election officials aren’t opposed to meeting the folks who elected them, and for whom they work. Find out what their office hours are and go say hello. The next week will be pretty busy, so they might appreciate it if you wait until after Nov. 3. But there will be other elections.

Heck, go to a board meeting. Most are boring, but you can learn how they work before they find themselves in the midst of controversy. You can also learn what each board is supposed to handle, how much of your tax dollars they get to spend, and just what the board has direct control of.

Be a smart citizen, and do a little of your own oversight.

À bientôt!