Renner: Non-partisan city election commission should run all county elections

Posted on August 14, 2018
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All county elections should be handled by the non-partisan city election commission, according to Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner. He said elected officials like County Clerk Kathy Michael should not be responsible for counting their own ballots. (WJBC file photo)

 

By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington’s mayor believes the city’s election commission should be strengthened instead of eliminated.

Tari Renner agrees with local Republicans and Libertarians that there should only be one bureaucracy handling elections, but he said it should be the non-partisan commission, and not the county clerk.

McLean County Democrats are planning to challenge the 1350 petition signatures the other two parties presented to the court to put a binding referendum on the November ballot to disband the commission.

Renner said County Clerk Kathy Michael should contract with the commission to run the elections.

“I can not support having Kathy Michael or any county clerk counting their own ballots,” said Renner.

“I don’t care if they’re Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party, pink, blue, whatever they are,” the mayor added.

Michael is being challenged in the November election by Democratic county clerk candidate Nikita Richards.

In a statement, McLean County Libertarian Party Chairman Steve Suess said local Democrats are suppressing voter choice by rummaging through petitions to find just enough potential errors to get the referendum off the ballot. A thousand signatures are needed for a judge to put the issue on the ballot.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]

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