The outcome of two election races in McHenry County changed Thursday after Clerk Mary McClellan discovered the county's election website had not updated results with early voting numbers.
Updated results now revealed 14th Congressional candidate Lauren Underwood carried McHenry County over incumbent U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren – and McHenry County Board District 5 candidate Carlos Acosta defeated incumbent Michael Rein.
Unofficial results without early voting totals marked victories for Republicans Hultgren and Rein and showed that 21 percent of the 116,000 McHenry County residents who cast votes in Tuesday’s midterm election did not pick a candidate for governor or other statewide offices on the ballot.
Asked how it could be possible that 1 in 5 voters decided not to vote in top-of-the-ticket races, McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan said there were issues with the county's election reporting software that led to missing vote totals.
"We are looking at election reporting software," McClellan told the Northwest Herald. "It is not showing all the numbers for some reason."
State Rep. David McSweeney contacted the Illinois State Board of Election's general counsel Thursday to ask for an investigation of how the McHenry County Clerk's Office tallied votes. The board reached out to McClellan and learned that early voting numbers were not included on the county's website.
"It looks strange," McSweeney said. "I’m not making any accusations, but it raises a red flag.”
...
In a phone interview Thursday morning, McClellan said the gap isn’t that unusual.
...
McClellan pegged the missing votes to “bullet voting” or "undervoting" – the practice of voting in one race on the ballot despite the ability to vote in more.
“People do it all the time,” the clerk said.
In 2016, the Illinois State Board of Elections looked into problems that plagued that year’s primary.
