DuPage County Clerk honored for her work with elections

DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek recently was awarded the 2023 Innovator Award for her work involving elections and mail-in ballots.

The International Association of Government Officials presented the award for the clerk's efforts in streamlining the verification of signatures on mail-in ballots. Kaczmarek adopted a system that allows election judges to view multiple voter signatures on file instead of just one when reviewing signatures on mail-in ballots.

The change resulted in a decrease in the number of challenges involving mail-in ballot signatures. In the 2020 primary election, the office saw a challenge percentage of 2.62%. During the 2022 primary, the challenge percentage was .582%.

Kaczmarek said the changes saved valuable election staff time and reduced voter disenfranchisement. She credited election managers Stephanie Groenewold and Jessica Stachniak for developing the signature comparison project in 2020 when mail in ballots increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The clerk's office used COVID-19 relief funds that same year to purchase equipment, such as large monitors so teams of elected judges could view and compare multiple signatures at once, to make the project a reality.

In 2022, DuPage County became the first and only county in Illinois to allow voters to cast their ballot at any polling place on Election Day.