Put Aurora election commission to rest

After Tuesday, it’s understandable if Aurorans feel the need to purge their minds of all things election until closer to November. Many of us do.

But their work is not done.

Just as soon as the malaise clears, Aurora voters ought to start planning how to collect the 1,000 petition signatures they’ll need by Aug. 6 to get a referendum question on the November ballot that would seek to eliminate the anachronistic Aurora Election Commission.

The commission was created 78 years ago, by referendum, to encourage voting and dissuade corruption — both laudable concepts then and today, though neither would seem to provide a raison d’être anymore.

In an age when suburban units of government are talking about consolidating to cut the fat and working together increasingly to improve purchasing power and create joint projects more cheaply, the case is strong for dissolving this body.

Aurora officials who favor disbanding the organization, including Mayor Tom Weisner, are concerned with costs. The city’s share of the commission’s cost was $345,903 in 2010 and $367,560 in 2011. This year, it’s expected to rise to $529,041.

Kane County funds the commission’s executive director’s pay and perks. And it’s up to the chief judge in the 16th Judicial Circuit to approve the commission’s expenditures.

Can this get any more complicated? Yes, it can.

First, you need to know that Aurora — the state’s second largest city — is spread over four counties: Kane, DuPage, Kendall and Will.

All Aurora homeowners fund the commission through taxes they pay the city, but those on the DuPage County side of town don’t receive its services. They register and vote through the DuPage Election Commission. Aurorans who live in Kendall or Will counties pay once for the election commission through city taxes, and they pay for their respective counties to provide election services they don’t use. And those in Kane County are taxed twice for election commission services — once through property taxes that go to the city, and again through taxes they pay to the county.

Sound unfair? Wasteful? We agree.

Even election commission board member Mike McCoy questions whether an election body separate from the city and county government makes sense anymore. “With the way elections are changing, I think some of those things make it less needed than it was in the 1930s,” he told staff writer Marie Wilson for a story this week. Counties may be able to handle elections more cheaply, after the initial costs of coordinating systems are factored in, he said.

Yes, the work of administering elections still must be done. But we have to think that with economies of scale and elimination of redundant administrative costs, things eventually can be done at a lower cost and supported more fairly by taxpayers.