The Lake County Clerk’s Office has initiated a permanent mail-in voting option for residents, starting with the Nov. 5 general election. (Photo courtesy of the Lake County Clerk’s Office)

The Lake County Clerk’s Office is sending out a one-time application offering residents the option to be placed on a permanent mail-in voting list.

Mandated by the Illinois legislature in 2021, the program will automatically send ballots to the addresses placed on the form for all elections, going forward.

Seen as a matter of convenience for physically challenged voters, as well as individuals who choose the option, it also helps the County Clerk’s Office maintain a more accurate inventory of the voter rolls. Residents can also decline to participate and visit their preferred polling place for early and “day-of” voting.

The applications for enrollment began being mailed to registered voting addresses Aug. 7. Voters can also opt-out of future notifications, although the forms with either selection must be returned to the County Clerk’s Office. The mailing is required to be sent every two years.

“This law, Public Act 102-0005, had gone through several permutations before getting finalized and not — it is mailed every two years — prior to a November election,” said Dan Thelen, director of elections for the County Clerk’s Office. “There have been several mailings this year to voters, as there are federal and state regulations that we have to go through.

“These procedures ensure that our voter rolls are accurate and up to date. We sent out a mailing, roughly one month ago, to facilitate that process. Ultimately, when it comes to the mailings, as the election authority, we send out the permanent vote-by-mail application … whether they are interested or request to be removed from the mailing list.”

The public act took effect July 1, 2023. The manner of oversight, specific candidate ballot allowances, and other delineations including physical layouts of polling places are encompassed in the legislation (www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/102/102-0015.htm).

For the county clerk’s office, certain information is being collected to verify voter addresses, in adherence to the law. Voters that have previously made their preferences known will not be receiving the mailed notice. If an email address is on file, the notice will be sent electronically.

A statement, issued by the county clerk’s office, said, “Ballots are mailed 40 days, prior to each election. This year, ballots will begin to be mailed Sept. 26, ahead of the Nov. 5 general elections.

Questions of fraudulent voting submissions came to the fore in the 2020 general elections, during the pandemic. Practices such as “social distancing,” and lengthy lines to reach polling places helped push the option of mail-in voting. Since then, they have continually been scrutinized and challenged throughout county, state appellate, and federal legal systems.

“If we sent a mail-in ballot to an address, that signature on the ballot is verified by two election judges, one from each of the major parties,” said Thelen. “That is essentially how we verify someone’s identity, as per state mandates. In Illinois, when you go to vote, you don’t have to show identification, unless there is a special circumstance.

“Once upon a time, providing identification to election judges was a crucial part of the election process, for verification,” he said. “It is done on the basis of the individual’s signature. Also, with early voting, you were required to show identification, but not on the day of the election.”

This is what prompted a voter registration audit mailing in July. The county clerk’s office noted that because of the timing, there may be some overlap in the receipt of the audit letters and the “vote-by-mail” letters. According to the statement by the clerk’s office, they are receiving multiple trays of audit letters daily and causing the delay.

As for predicting the overall participation response to the new permanent mail-in-vote program, the county clerk’s office is still somewhat tentative on the numbers. “It’s hard to say,” Thelen said. “This all started in 2022, so we are still trying to gauge the outlines and gauge the response, at this point.”