Next year’s primary elections would be pushed back by three months under a bill state legislators plan to vote on Monday.
An amendment to Senate Bill 825 would move the primary from the third Tuesday in March to June 28, 2022, make Election Day a state holiday and change circulation dates for candidates seeking office among other changes.
Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford, said the decision to move the primary is partly to allow election clerks more time to educate people on when the primary will be and because “the state has always had a really long window between the primary and the general,” which can negatively effect policy making.
“Our proposal is to do this one time change just to see how it works and I think it will be beneficial to the state, and then it can maybe be something we keep moving forward,” West said.
If the bill is approved, candidates could begin circulating nominating petitions for the general primary starting Jan. 13, 2022. Independent candidates, or those in new political parties, could begin circulating their petitions April 13.
Voters would be able to request a mail-in ballot between March 30, 2022 and June 23, 2022. The proposed bill would also require the Illinois State’s Board of Elections to submit legislation establishing a system in which mail-in ballots could be sent electronically and allow those with disabilities to mark their ballots with assistive technology.
County leaders would have until late November to develop and present their own redistricting plans for their municipalities and have until the end of the year to get those plans passed, according to the bill’s proposal. They’ll also be able to use data from the American Community Survey for those reapportionment plans, something Republicans have opposed.
Because of the delayed primary, the Cook County Democratic Party would move its pre-slating days from June to later in the fall, the executive director of the party said.
The bill would also allow sheriffs in counties with fewer than 3 million people — meaning counties outside of Cook County — to open temporary branch polling places at their county jails for detainees.
Asked why state lawmakers approved new legislative maps when the primary would likely be delayed, a spokeswoman for Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said there was a June 30 constitutional deadline to meet for the creation and approval of the updated boundaries.
The bill is set to be heard in a House committee Monday afternoon, which would allow it to advance to the House floor for a vote later in the day.
The last time the state moved its primary date, in 2008, legislators chose to move it forward — to February — to help former President Barack Obama in his bid for that office.
