* The Illinois State Board of Elections has changed its website address from http://www.elections.state.il.us to http://www.elections.il.gov. That’s no big deal, except that the Board is not auto-forwarding links from the old URL to the new one.

In order to make my life a little easier (actually, a lot easier), I’ve bookmarked almost 200 Board of Elections links to candidate contribution reports and other pages within the site that I use quite often.

But now, because the Board doesn’t auto-forward to its new URL, all my links are dead (click here for an example). So, I have to go back and change every single one of those links.

Ugh.

I am not a happy camper.

*** UPDATE 1 *** The old URL appears to be working now. Squeaky wheel, grease, etc. Thanks to whoever changed it back.

*** UPDATE 2 *** I just got off the phone with the State Board of Elections’ executive director and the top tech guy. They explained that they didn’t realize that people were using the old URL (little did I know that they changed their URL five years ago). They also vowed cooperation on whatever they could cooperate on. We talked about some things that I’ve wanted for years, like RSS feeds for various categories and a separate link to latest petition challenges that have been overruled.

It was the most positive conversation I’ve had with the State Board of Elections since they launched their first website in the late 1990s. Things got extremely heated back then for reasons I don’t need to dredge up again, and the relationship kinda went downhill ever since. Hopefully, things are about to get better.

[ *** End Of Updates *** ]

* And speaking of websites that make me unhappy, Gatehouse has found a way around my browsers’ popup blockers so it can load one of those irritating “pop-under” pages every time I visit their newspaper sites. I hate pop-unders and I despise any company that uses them. Stop it, please.

* Do you have any website beefs? Please share.