Tuesday's election went better than expected, despite low turnout

In fall 2005, there was a Chicago area newspaper columnist who predicted the White Sox would blow it, that they wouldn't win the World Series. After the White Sox won, the columnist printed a recipe for cooking up a nice helping of a large black bird.

I am eating a helping of crow right now because I had a very bad feeling something would go wrong for the April 7 election. That Kane County Clerk John Cunningham and his office would be late with results or do something to cause more stress for us media people.

I didn't write up a column, but I had past experience to fall back on. In fall 2006, some polls opened late, so every single polling place in Kane County had to stay open later. That made for a long night for many of my colleagues.

Another reason was the Feb. 24 Elgin City Council primary. On that night, a computer glitch caused results to come in late.

And that was for a handful of races, so I shuddered to think what would happen when there were dozens of school boards, city councils, park boards, village boards, referendums, townships - you get the idea.

By all accounts, the election - and posting of results - went rather smoothly.

So I am giving kudos to Cunningham and the folks in this much-maligned office.

"All in all, the election went extremely well," Cunningham said.

He noted the problems encountered on Feb. 24 stemmed from a write-in candidacy that forced his staff to use two different computer databases to count ballots. This process was new for Cunningham's staff.

"We had the tools and equipment, but not the experience," he said.

Cunningham said this time around he would give his staff an "A-minus" grade.

But he might have a different grade for voter turnout, which was around 20 percent.

"If anything failed in the election, it was to have voters come to the polling places," he said.

Unfortunately, that's something Cunningham can't fix on his own.