Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain elected to second term

Kane County voters backed Sheriff Ron Hain, supporting his bid for a second term in office.

With all 292 precincts reporting, unofficial vote totals show Hain, an Elburn Democrat, with 86,901 votes. His opponent, Republican Jeff Bodin, of Sugar Grove, had 65,508 votes.

"I think the public really recognized everything that the sheriff's office has been doing over the last four years and how far we've come," Hain, 46, said Tuesday night.

Hain said he looks forward to expanding jail services and continuing efforts to retain and train deputies.

During the campaign, Hain and Bodin squared off on issues including school safety, staffing and the SAFE-T Act.

Hain ran on his record pointing to various programs, including drug treatment programs for inmates at the county jail, Hain also said he is working to make a drug-treatment center available in Aurora to provide continued assistance to recently released inmates.

Bodin, who works as a sheriff's deputy, supported providing treatment programs to inmates while in custody but said he would opt for one that offers a more spiritual focus. He added he would lobby to have a stronger federal presence at the country's borders to prevent drugs from coming into the country.

A key point of Bodin's campaign focused on school security. Bodin said he would work to have an armed guard inside every school. And if schools opted out, he would place a guard outside the school. Bodin said his program would rely on volunteer retired law enforcement or military officers and said he would volunteer eight hours a month to help provide security to area schools.

Hain said Bodin's idea caused alarm among some school officials and noted that the sheriff's office cannot force school security on any school. Hain also noted the sheriff's office already provides a school resource officer to each of the high schools in unincorporated areas in Kane County. He said the sheriff's office also provides a school resource officer at each of the high schools in unincorporated areas of the county, and those officers work with middle and elementary schools.