By: Diane Benjamin
The Bloomington Election Commission has a long history of failing at their one job: Elections. Just in November they couldn’t tell candidates for Bloomington Council how many signatures they needed on petitions because of redistricting. In 2022 BEC requested and increase to their budget of $550,000. BEC has had a hard time lately keeping an Executive Director and finding qualified people to take the job when one leaves. Search here for more stories, there are a bunch of them. There is even one about the ballot needing corrections after voting had started.
Keep in mind Bloomington doesn’t pay to have their own election office, everyone in the County is forced to fund it by law but we can not elect anyone or hold anyone accountable for problems that exist. Details: https://blnnews.com/2022/03/01/bloomington-proved-bec-is-a-waste-of-money/
BEC isn’t non partisan either. The commission is now looking for a new member after one resigned. They have 3, 1 has to be from the opposing party. That means either 2 democrats run BEC or 2 Republicans.
See this WGLT story: https://www.wglt.org/local-news/2023-02-17/bloomington-election-commission-seeks-new-member-following-resignation
The writer missed the obvious contradiction:
2 Excerpts:
The first quote means applicants have to be a HARD Democrat or Hard Republican. The second quote claims once appointed the same HARD party believer need to pretend to be nonpartisan.
Political convictions can’t be thrown away especially when there is no oversight of BEC by voters. BEC could completely mangle an election and voters could do ZERO about it.
If the County screws up elections voters can hold the County Clerk accountable. Bloomington can’t hold anyone accountable.
Judge Rebecca Foley will be interviewing applicants. You might remember her from this: https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2016/judges-suspended-over-affair-five-years-later/
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Confusing “non-partisan” with “bi-partisan” is nothing new. This happens regularly. McLean County has three established, state-recognized political parties, and only two of them get spots on the BEC, and only one (the majority) gets to actually control the organization.
You’d think with three established parties they could find a way to make three seats equally represented…
You know they consider libertarians immaterial. The bigger point is nobody votes for or can hold anyone accountable at BEC regardless of how bad they are at doing only 1 job.
Confusing “non-partisan” with “bi-partisan” is nothing new. This happens regularly. McLean County has three established, state-recognized political parties, and only two of them get spots on the BEC, and only one (the majority) gets to actually control the organization.
You’d think with three established parties they could find a way to make three seats equally represented…