Tuesday 27 May 2014

Procedures And Dates For Illinois Elections 2014

By Marci Glover


Elections for the state of Illinois will be staged in almost the whole of 2014. Activities began as early as end of 2013 and will run all the way to late 2014. People have already filed for nominations, registered with the elections body, carried out a local ballot measure, and voted for school boards among many other voting related activities. Each exercise in Illinois elections 2014 has a day assigned to it.

The very first of these events was submission of signatures of voters who would participate in primary voting. Primarily this exercise involves signature filing. These signatures are meant to be used during elections. They must be kept in a database to help place names of signatories on the ballot paper. This exercise ended on December 2, 2013.

What followed was registration of voters for primary voting. Voters do not need to be registered members of political parties in this state. Instead, they have to publicly proclaim the party for which they will cast ballots. One requires to have been a resident of Illinois for at least 30 days to the voting day before being allowed to cast a ballot. Voter registration stopped in February.

The primary elections were scheduled for March 18, 2014 during which incumbent Democrat Governor Pat Quinn faced opposition from Tio Hardiman. Four republicans also squared off for the ticket to face incumbent Governor. Bruce Rauner won after garnering 40.1 % of the votes. In the senate position, incumbent Democrat, Richard Dublin ran unopposed while republican Jim Oberweis defeated his opponent, Doug Truax by a margin of 13% of the total votes cast. There were a total of 7,505,002 registered voters.

Gubernatorial elections will be held on 4 November this year. Pat Quinn will battle it out with Bruce Rauner in what most people say will be an easy win for the Republican. Quinn is looking forward to a re-election for a second appearance in office. He took over office from Rod Blagojevich after his impeachment in 2009. Throughout his term in office, Quinn has received very little approval, and many say he might lose to Bruce in November.

The opponent battling with Quinn, Bruce Rauner, has been reported to be contemplating using $ 50 millions in his campaign. Before primary elections, he had already used his own $ 6 million during the campaign, and had raised $ 14 million before nomination elections. Opinion polls have ranked Bruce ahead of Quinn.

Ballot measures for local ballot were scheduled for 18/3/ 2014. A measure seeking to abolish hydraulic fracturing was vanquished. If it had not been defeated, pressure could have mounted on the county commissioner to force him pass a bill abolishing hydraulic fracturing with the purpose of regulating harmful and nature related side effects emanating from fracturing. Less than half the number of registered voters turned out, and majority of them opposed the intention of the bill.

Early voting without specific requirements is accepted in Illinois. Usually, the process of early voting starts fourteen days prior to the election date. It ends just three days before the election date. Absentee voting is also allowed. This process needs an application sent 40-5 days prior to the elections. For one to be allowed to vote, he/she must be a citizen of America who has resided in that region for a minimum of thirty days to the elections, and must have attained the age of eighteen. Citizens are always free to register any time of the year.




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