Big Ballots, Precinct Mix-Ups Among Darien’s Election Day Glitches

Registered voters in DuPage County got cards in the mail telling them where to head on primary day — but some of those cards were wrong.

“There were 12 people we had to send to the Christian Science Center on 63^rd Street,” said longtime election judge Raymond Wood, stationed this year at the .

Election judges at polling places across Darien shared similar stories. Max Steele, technical judge at , said several people received cards incorrectly directing them to his polls.

But that's par for the course during a redistricting year, he said, when congressional lines are redrawn across the state, forming a web of new precincts.

Lord of Life also dealt with a batch of this morning that were too large to fit in the tabulating machines, Steele said. By afternoon, however, the poll had a new batch of correctly sized ballots that could be counted mechanically. (All the oversized ballots will be counted by hand.)

Aside from the poll location confusion, the biggest hiccup for Wood was combined the personal with the professional: His judge, Jimmy, was stationed at a different polling place.

“They split us up this year,” Jimmy Wood said. “I was sad.” For the past several elections, the father-son duo has manned the polls at .

“We make a good team,” Raymond Wood said.

He tried to get Jimmy reassigned to Darien-Woodridge from Lord of Life, but Steele wouldn’t give him up because the church sees voters from four precincts, and Jimmy is a pro at handling the technical aspects of election day.

“(Steele) said, ‘Who taught him all this?’” Raymond Wood said. “I told him, ‘I did.’”

Overall, election judges throughout Darien reported a relatively high turnout. By 4:30 p.m., Wood said about 19 percent of the registered voters for that polling location had voted — a busy day for a primary.

“Anything close to 20 percent is unbelievable,” he said.

About 200 people had voted at by 3:45 p.m., said election judge Mary Ellen Koenig. That bodes well for turnout in November, she said.

“I’m sure the general election will be a very busy day for us because that is an election that everyone wants to vote in,” she said.

Aside from one woman who came to the wrong polling location, things were running smoothly at the country club — but Koenig didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

“This is a wood table,” said Koenig, rapping her knuckles across the surface.