Rock Island Today

Champaign County Recorder of Deeds Mark Shelden said he’s had doubts about election integrity, specifically in Rock Island, since the 2014 election.

"They actually started processing absentee ballots ahead of time without telling either of the political (parties) — certainly didn't tell the Republican Party — it was the Democratic clerk, did not tell the Republican Party that they were doing it," Shelden said. "And in fact, they were breaking the law. And we don't know why or whether or not they did anything to alter results or what."

Shelden said there wasn't much security when it came to the absentee ballots.

"Back then the security they had on their absentee ballots, we had severe doubts about the integrity of that," Shelden said. "How do you make sure that the ballots that are being stored at any given time are not being tampered with?"

Shelden said he worries about the chain of custody when it comes to things like ballots.

"That's one of the things that we have a problem (with) in Illinois - and my guess it is happening in  many other jurisdictions - which is the chain of custody, the integrity of the ballots, the integrity of the ballot boxes, all of that is kind of left up to the discretion of the election official," Shelden said. "And there's not a whole lot of oversight."

Shelden said there isn't much guidance given.

"And hopefully after this, some of the issues that we've heard about, my hope is that there's going to be an effort to provide more guidance and more transparency to this process because we need transparency," Shelden said. 

Then Rock Island County Clerk Karen Kinney faced a lawsuit over voting machine issues. 

Current Rock Island Circuit Clerk Tammy Weikert has been the circuit clerk for the last five years, but has been employed with the circuit clerk’s office for 23 years. 

In May, Weikert laid off 15 clerks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One week later, she rejected proposed pay increases for county employees.