An Updated IL Special Senate Election Estimate: $31M
Ken Menzel, an elections specialist with the Illinois State Board of Elections, revised down today his prior estimate for the cost of a special U.S. Senate contest to replace Pres.-elect Barack Obama.
Menzel yesterday told On Call that the election, which lawmakers are hoping to sanction next week during a special session of the IL General Assembly, could cost between $45 million and $50 million. Today, upon closer examination of the precinct expenses in the special House race earlier this year to replace Rep. J. Dennis Hastert in IL-14, Menzel predicted that a statewide contest would cost about $31 million.
He said that the March race to replace Hastert cost about $2,700 per precinct in Kane County, one pocket of the then-congressman's district. There are 11,539 precincts in Illinois. Simple multiplication brings the total for a statewide contest to $31 million, Menzel said. That money would go to printing ballots, programming and testing machines, paying election judges, renting some (but not all) polling places and more.
Lawmakers have said today they would like to cut costs by conducting the race on 2/24 and 4/7, days already set aside for municipal elections. There are calendar matters, however, that might make that difficult to pull off.
First and most notably, Blagojevich would, of course, have to sign off on any legislation passed by state lawmakers. He has 60 days to do so. Another potential problem? The filing deadline for that 2/24 local election primary race is 12/15. That's Monday. When the General Assembly is first meeting to discuss a bill to call for a special election.
Filing calendars can be shortened, but petitions to run must still be filed, and major party candidates are required by law to get 5,000 signatures. With the holidays and the legal requirements for windows allowed for absentee voting and in-person early voting, it'll be a tight squeeze.
(JENNIFER SKALKA)