" The first day ballots could be mailed was 9/24. It should take 5-7 days for the ballot to make it to you. So don't panic that your ballot hasn't arrived yet. We are having a lot of voters who have requested a ballot that are showing up to vote in person. This is something you can do as long as you fill out the affidavit saying you want to vote in person. If you have requested a vote by mail and then decided to vote in person, your vote by mail ballot might still be mailed to you. In the event you have already voted in person and your vote by mail arrives, please shred/destroy the ballot. There is no way for a voter to vote more than once, Our voter registration program tracks how, when and who votes and will not allow a person to vote more than once."   

Join the Wesley Student Center & United Methodist Church at the UI via Zoom and Facebook Live on September 27 at 2:00 pm to hear from various presenters on the topics of racism, police brutality, media bias, civil and public discourse and many other topics. Presenters include Chancellor Jones, Director Michael Schlosser, Professor Brant Houston, Professor Ned O’ Gorman, and Professor Jennifer Robbennolt. Following the presentations their will be a 25 minute Q & A session. 

Watch the event on Facebook Live on September 27  or contact Donna Giffen at donna@wesleyui.org to join the event via  Zoom Webinar.  Facebook event. 

This event is also supported by the League of Women Voters of Champaign County.

Another new drop box for receiving Vote-by-Mail has been installed on the UI Campus.  Completed vote-by-mail ballots can be deposited in these boxes now until Election Day, November 3. (But don't wait until the last minute!) 

Teams of Democratic and Republican staff members and trained volunteers pick up the ballots from the drop boxes every day. 

Courtesy of the County Clerk's Twitter feed, here is a photo of the first Vote-by-Mail drop box in Champaign County. This drop box is at Brookens Administrative Center. 

When you have received your vote-by-mail ballot, you can drop it off at the Brookens Administrative Center in this box.The Administrative Center is located at 1776 E Washington St, Urbana, IL 61802. Parking for the gymnasium is on the north side of the building, off of Art Bartell Road.

( Vote-by-mail ballots will mailed out starting September 24.) 

​Schedule · Tuesday, September 22, 2020
12:00 PM - 8:00 PM
12:00 PM Welcome Message, Photo Booth and Vote Song
1:00 PM
League of Women Voter of Champaign County
2:00 PM
YMCA Welcome Week, Path to Become a Citizen and Friday Forum
3:00 PM
2020 Voting Info #IlliniVote #WhatsYourPlan
4:00 PM
The University of Illinois Student Advocacy Coalition Forum
5:00 PM
Community Voices

To participate see the Facebook event: 

The following is an announcement from LWVCC President Trisha Crowley. 

As part of its mission to educate voters, this League presents candidate forums for locally contested races, if 2 or more candidates have agreed to attend the forum.  We do not present a forum where only one candidate in a contested race has agreed to appear.  

Several members of the League have expressed disappointment about this “empty chair” policy of the League. They have pointed out this policy can lead to manipulation by candidates who refuse to appear based on motives other than availability. 
 
The purpose of these forums is to provide voters with a side-by-side comparison of candidates who are answering the same questions in the same format. Its purpose is not to provide publicity for the one  candidate, however informative it may be to the voter.  The League does not evaluate the reason or non-reason a candidate who does not wish to appear gives.  Maybe it’s a conflict with a previously scheduled event.  Maybe the candidate does not wish to appear together with his/ her opponent.  We do not ask because the reason is not the point.  By giving one candidate in a race a public arena to make his/ her case, the League could arguably appear to be supporting one candidate over another. This is something we go to great lengths to avoid as our non-partisan reputation is one we value highly. 
 
Part of the reason for this policy is legal.  The League is a tax-exempt organization and governed by IRS, FEC and FCC regulations which require it to maintain a non-partisan stance in order to maintain its tax exempt status.

Further  information about the policy is available at the website of the national League of Women Voters : https://www.lwv.org/league-management/policies-guidelines/guidelines-state-and-local-league-debates-including-emptydebates-including-empty.        .  
 
We urge those looking for  comments directly from candidates to go to VoteChamapign.org, a League- affiliated website which provides a host of informational resources about candidates.

On September 9, 7:00 pm - 9:45 pm, LWVCC held the first of its local candidate forums for the Nov 3rd 2020 Election.  

See the Candidate Forums page for the rest of the schedule and how to access the recorded forums from September 9. 

 We hope that you join us and get informed on the local candidates running for office.

Adapted from News Gazette editorial of September 2, 2020. 

Despite claims by President Trump and some of his allies that voting by mail this fall is a partisan plan to multiply incidents of fraud and to avert his re-election, it’s proving to be a popular concept with voters nationwide and in Illinois.
 
And there’s no evidence of widespread fraud in the five states (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington) that have been using vote by mail since before 2018.
 
The Illinois State Board of Elections reported on Aug. 31 that more than 1.2 million voters in the state already had requested vote-by-mail ballots for the November election. That’s a sure sign that voters here will take advantage in record numbers of the opportunity to vote safely and securely during the coronavirus pandemic. The current record for voting by mail in Illinois was in the 2018 general election when 430,000 votes were cast by mail, about 9.3 percent of all ballots that year.
 
Requests for vote-by-mail ballots, which are filed with individual election authorities such as county clerks and city boards of elections, have increased both in Republican and Democratic counties. In deep red Iroquois County, 1,835 voters had asked for vote-by-mail ballots as of Aug. 31. That’s already more than 15 percent of all the people who had voted in Iroquois County in 2016, and there’s still several weeks left to apply for a vote-by-mail ballot.
 
In blue Champaign County, more than 17,000 people had asked for a vote-by-mail ballot as of Monday. In Vermilion County, the two election authorities there report a combined 3,417 requests.
 
Although you can wait until Oct. 29 to ask for a vote-by-mail ballot for the Nov. 3 election, the state board of elections strongly recommends that you do so by no later than October 15 in order to avoid any complications with mail delivery. <emphasis added>
 
“Voting by mail provides a safe, secure and convenient voting option for those concerned about COVID-19,” said Steve Sandvoss, director of the state board of elections. “It also will help ease congestion at in-person polling places during early voting and on Election Day.”
 
Illinois’ early voting system also has been endorsed by Republicans including U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, and former Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten. The Brookings Institution, in reviewing Trump’s charges of vote fraud, found that there had been 29 cases in the five states.
 
“In Oregon, the first state to adopt a universal vote-by-mail system (which Illinois does not have), the Heritage (Foundation) researchers had to cover a period of 19 years in order to find 15 cases of vote fraud,” Brookings said. “Less than one case a year hardly qualifies as rampant voter fraud.”
Brookings also noted that there was a case of extensive vote fraud last year in North Carolina. But it was by Republican operatives who were illegally collecting absentee ballots. They were caught and convicted. The election results were overturned and a new election was held.
 
Voters shouldn’t let President Trump’s comments dissuade them from participating in the election or attempt to preemptively delegitimize the results. Widespread voting by mail has worked effectively in other states just as absentee voting has been worked effectively in Illinois for decades.