Tag Archives: voter registration

Judge Scales Back Election Day Registration

Sep 27, 2016 | WLS-AM Staff

By Bill Cameron, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) Election day voter registration in Illinois has hit a snag.  A federal judge has sided with the conservative Liberty Justice Center and granted a preliminary injunction against it pending trial.

 The issue is whether the new law is applied unfairly. Large counties, but not small ones, have to provide election day registration in the precincts. Small counties only have to have one central location.

A federal judge granted the injunction, but Cook County Clerk David Orr is hoping the same day registration that began as an experiment in the March primary can continue in the November general election.

 “Keep in mind over a hundred thousand people registered to vote on election day in precinct in March, and that’s a primary,” Orr said. “So we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people that might want to do that and if that’s denied, it causes chaos.”

It also probably causes fewer Democratic votes.

@ 2016 WLS-AM News

 

@ 2016

Cook County Clerk Pushes Voter Registration

Sep 27, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

By Jennifer Keiper, WLS-AM 890 News

(CHICAGO) As part of National Voter Registration Day, the Cook County Clerk’s office is holding dozens of voter registration events throughout Chicago and the suburbs.

Cook County Clerk David Orr says there is a lot of attention being paid to the Presidential Election, “but the number one item voters need to make sure of, right now, is that they are registered to vote.”

Registration events take place at 90 sites including CTA and Metra stations, colleges, hospitals, community centers and libraries from Matteson to Maywood, Markham to Winnetka, and Evanston to Chicago Heights.

Clerk’s office representatives will even register voters and distribute voting information inside U.S. Cellular Field from 6 – 9 p.m., during the Chicago White Sox game with the Tampa Bay Rays. You can get detailed information about times and locations at www.cookcountyclerk.com.

© WLS-AM 890 News

Bringing Democracy to Lollapalooza

Aug 1, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

By Jen DeSalvo, WLS-AM 890

(CHICAGO) More than being one of the most popular music festivals in the United States, Lollapalooza advocates that it is a place where music fans can learn more about how to help the world around them.

Lolla Cares, according to the website, “brings together the best of the world’s organizations and puts them in front of 100,000 festival fans to bring awareness to amazing causes.”

One of the 2016 exhibitors was HeadCount, a non-for-profit, non-partisan organization that works with musicians to promote participation in democracy.

Katie Lenza, a Chicago Team Leader for HeadCount explains that the mission of the organization’s involvement at Lollapalooza is, “to get people to vote and make sure that everybody is exercising their right.”

Since 2004, the organization has helped register over 300,000 voters across all 50 states in the nation at more than 1,000 concert events per year. Since many fans at Lollapalooza travel from out of state, festival goers were able to register no matter which state they reside in.

“It’s more people who are registered, so it has been either those who are 17 and will be 18 before the next election or people who have turned 18 since the last term,” Lenza said of the typical person who she encountered at Lollapalooza.

Lenza and the other volunteers have encountered their share of political questions over the duration of the event.

“The biggest question is ‘who are you voting for,’ but since we are non-partisan, non-for-profit we are not affiliated with a major party,” Lenza said. “We are getting a lot of ‘Go Trump,’ but also hearing ‘anyone but Trump,’ so it has been interesting.”

“I’ve had a lot of people say this is the first time that I’d be able to vote, but I’m not registering because I don’t want to vote…a lot of women,” Lenza added. “We haven’t had this right for that long, so it is interesting hearing how women say that they are not going to register, or if they are registered, that they aren’t voting.”

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