DeKalb County clerk reflects on ballot counting on election night

SYCAMORE – The death of a Hinckley-Big Rock Community School District 429 school board candidate 12 days before Tuesday’s Consolidated Election and write-in candidate vote tallying slowed the process of uploading election results, DeKalb County officials said.

When Julianna Morsch, 63, died March 23, ballots had already been printed, DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder Tasha Sims said. Morsch could not be removed from the ballot because a month prior more than 4,000 mail-in ballots were sent out, and early voting already had begun.

“She was a very nice lady, very devoted and active member in a lot of things in Hinckley so it was a very sad loss,” Sims said. According to Morsch’s obituary, friends will be able to able to pay their respects from 1 to 3 p.m. May 20 at Hinckley First United Methodist Church, 801 N. Sycamore St.

DeKalb County reported 10% voter turnout for the April 4 election. That’s compared with 9.83% in the consolidated election in April 2019. In 2021 – when all of DeKalb County’s largest municipalities elected new mayors – voter turnout was 14.59%.

[ Here are the unofficial 2023 election results for DeKalb County ]

Any votes cast for Morsch in the Consolidated Election had to be manually moved to an undervote, a designation for ballots with no vote or less than the total allowed in a specific race. If a ballot says “vote for no more than three,” and only two candidates are picked, then those candidates will receive their vote and the undervote category is given a tally. Ballots with unreadable write-in votes could be put under this classification. In this case, votes for Morsch were moved to the undervote category.

I do not want to falsely report and get anyone’s hopes up. My biggest fear was anything that happened previously. I don’t want to backtrack at all,

—  Tasha Sims, DeKalb County clerk and recorder

Sims said her office was informed of Morsch’s death about March 23 and contacted their Election Systems and Software vender to prepare the necessary changes for Election Day, but there was another wrinkle she had to wait on: whether DeKalb City Council 5th Ward incumbent Scott McAdams’ name would remain on the ballot.

“We actually waited to do anything because we also wanted to know the results of the, basically the McAdams case of the [city of DeKalb] 5th Ward and whether we had to change anything with that one, as well,” Sims said.

“We actually waited to do anything because we also wanted to know the results of the, basically the McAdams case of the [city of DeKalb] 5th Ward and whether we had to change anything with that one as well,” Sims said. The city of DeKalb’s Electorial Board ruled, twice to allow McAdams to remain on the ballot. That decision was upheld by DeKalb Circuit Court Chief Judge Bradley Waller on April 3, hours before polls opened the next morning.

The DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder’s Office was prepared to manually count undervotes for both McAdams and Morsch, but after Waller’s decision only ballots from one precinct – in Squaw Grove – needed to be looked at, Sims said.

“We knew we were going to do it and it had to be election night because it’s really not the results, it’s reporting that changes,” Sims said. “I mean, the results are how everyone voted, the sticks remained exactly the same, everything was the same, the reporting is what changes. We just take her votes that are reported under her name and we moved them manually to undervotes.”

In past elections, as day-of election votes are added to the elections results portal, the number of precincts reporting would be shown. However, April 4 results said none of the 65 precincts in DeKalb County were reporting numbers, even as day-of election votes were being added.

Sims said once the numbers from Squaw Grove precinct’s polling place at the Hinckley Community building came back, the Election Systems and Software vendor began manually moving votes for Morsch to the undervote category.

“We kind of stalled a little bit in being able to upload results because she was in the computer, the results computer, and so I wanted to make sure that was correct,” Sims said. “We had some last minute sticks waiting but we wanted to make sure that was done correctly. Once it was, we uploaded the rest of the sticks and then we were able to say all of them are back, it’s 65 of 65, these are tonight’s unofficial results.”

Sims said her office will look into updating the precincts reporting total as they come in during future elections, but after an instance during the Nov. 8, 2022, General Election where the election results portal falsely showed all 65 precincts were reporting, she wants to take extra precaution.

“I do not want to falsely report and get anyone’s hope’s up,” Sims said, referring to November’s inaccuracy, which happened under her predecessor, Douglas Johnson. “My biggest fear was anything that happened previously. I don’t want to backtrack at all.”

Sims drove more than 200 miles to all 40 polling places in DeKalb County on Election Day, but she said “the real rock stars” of the day were the election judges and the election staff.

“It’s a long day, especially when the turnout is low, it feels even longer,” Sims said. “But they all hung in there and I was so glad to meet all of them at every polling place I went to. They’re the ones that make this happen and they’re amazing.”