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*** UPDATED x1 *** More SoS glitch details emerge

Thursday, Jan 23, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller

* AP…

At least three of 16 Illinois residents who cast ballots after being mistakenly registered to vote are U.S. citizens after all, election officials said Wednesday in assessing the damage caused by an error in the state’s automatic voter registration system.

Secretary of State Jesse White’s office, a key player in the system because it oversees driver’s licenses, said the data of 574 people who self-identified as noncitizens was mistakenly forwarded to elections officials to be registered to vote. Election officials said 545 of them were registered and 16 voted in 2018 and 2019 elections.

While those who checked a box on an electronic pad indicating they weren’t U.S. citizens should never have been registered, it turned out at least three from central Illinois counties are citizens. State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said it appeared another two — who have long voting histories — were also likely citizens. Elections officials suggested one explanation was that the registrants may have been confused during the process.

Or it was simple (and predictable) human error. We now know that at least some folks who checked a box saying they weren’t citizens made a mistake. These things are actually guaranteed to happen on occasion because the process involves human beings. They can be minimized but never eliminated.

That doesn’t excuse the SoS computer glitch, however. And it doesn’t forgive the people who knew what was going on a month ago and failed to inform the public. That deliberate silence only further undermines their credibility.

…Adding… This all would’ve been long cleared up by now if they had simply disclosed the error and began working to figure out who was accidentally registered and who voted a month ago…

State Bd of Elex spokesman says, after reviewing the count, that there were only 15 - not 16 - people listed as possible non-citizens who voted statewide starting in November 2018. At least 3 of those voters — in Christian, Peoria and Macon counties, turned out to be citizens.

— Bernie Schoenburg (@bschoenburg) January 23, 2020

There is no excuse for this delay.

*** UPDATE *** The House Executive Committee has just posted a subject matter hearing on the AVR glitch. The hearing will be held next Thursday, January 30th at 9 o’clock in the morning.

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Senate President Harmon to leave his law firm after 15 years

Thursday, Jan 23, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller

* What Harmon is doing is the opposite of what usually happens in this state when legislators advance to the top of the food chain. Here’s Amanda Vinicky…

At a time when leading legislators’ private side jobs are increasingly under scrutiny, newly elevated state Senate President Don Harmon will step down as a partner at the law firm Burke Burns & Pinelli, Ltd. to focus full-time on his new leadership position.

Harmon told “Chicago Tonight” on Wednesday he met with the firm’s founding partner Mary Patricia Burns on Tuesday to discuss his exit.

“We began the discussion of me stepping away from the practice in order to devote more time to the Senate presidency,” said Harmon, a Democrat who represents Illinois’ 39th District, which covers parts of Oak Park. “We’re working out all those details but I’ve recognized that I just don’t have the time capacity to be a good senate president and to practice law the way I practiced it.”

…Adding… Sun-Times…

“I was very careful to manage the conflicts, and my firm was incredibly committed to making sure I had the chance to maintain my integrity,” Harmon told WTTW. “The simple fact of the matter is I just don’t have the time to be a good Senate president and live up to my responsibilities to my partners and my clients.”

Mary Pat Burns, the majority owner of the firm, said in an emailed statement that she and Harmon agreed he could “best serve Illinois by devoting all of his time to his new role in the Senate.”

“It’s been wonderful to practice law with him at Burke Burns & Pinelli for the last 15 years,” she said. “And I take pride in knowing that a WBE firm played such a central role in the life of the new President of the Illinois Senate.”

The headline of that article was nonsense, by the way. “Illinois Senate President Don Harmon ‘stepping away’ from law firm job amid conflict of interest scrutiny.” Somebody does the right thing for a change and that’s the response? Yeah, that’ll encourage more of this sort of behavior.