Can you use your cellphone while voting?

Do you have a cheat sheet of candidates you are voting for stored on your cellphone?

Consider writing that on a piece of scratch paper instead, because some polling places ban the use of cellphones altogether.

While there is no state law against bringing your cellphone in the booth, local authorities can establish rules to preserve decorum, according to Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois State Board of Elections.

In Kane County, that means no cellphones in the polling place, a voter was told Sunday in Carpentersville. Even election judges are not to have phones, Kindles, tablets or other electronic devices, according to the judges' manual.

Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham said he does provide "No Phones" signs for the polling places, but it is up to the judges at each place whether to allow phones.

Election judges technically are officers of the court, he said, and they are responsible for conducting an orderly election, he said.

Typically, election authorities don't want everybody talking on their phones while they wait to vote, or are casting their ballots.

They're trying to keep the noise level down. "It's just disruptive," Lake County Clerk Carla Wyckoff said.

And people may start talking about for whom they are voting, which is electioneering, Wyckoff, Cunningham and Menzel said. State law does prohibit talking about that inside a polling place.

Some people also are concerned someone could be taking a picture of how they are voting, Menzel said. "Those phones do so many things. This particular election, it doesn't take much to set anybody off."

State law does prohibit taking photos of ballots.

Wyckoff trains her election judges to politely tell everyone, when they check in, to refrain from making or receiving telephone calls.

DuPage County bans the use of cellphones. You can use one at the entrance if using an app to determine if you are voting in the right place.

Menzel said a blanket ban on cellphones may be easier for judges to enforce than trying to keep an eye on every single voter.

"They may have gone a little too far," he said of the Kane County judges.