Updating the close contests in the 1st and 8th Subcircuits

The curtains in the old Chicago voting machines didn't go all the way to the floor, and the only-partially-screened voter might have to shuffle his or her feet a bit in order to pull the levers for particular candidates -- something unnecessary if one merely voted the straight ticket -- thus the ancient precinct captain's harsh indictment: I seen you dancin' in dere.

In those innocent days, in close statewide elections, people would stay up late, glued to their TVs, waiting to see how long it would take for the river wards (in Chicago) or DuPage County (in those days as fervently Republican as Chicago is, and was, Democratic) to 'release' their votes -- which some people (bitter, cynical people) interpreted as the respective camps calculating how many votes either side needed to invent to achieve their desired result -- but, at some point, late that night, or in the wee small hours of the morning, even the close contests would be decided.

No longer.

Some diabolical genius 'improved' things with Votes By Mail.

Now, in a close race, we have to wait days, or a week or more, to ascertain the true will of the people.

We have two close races in contested Cook County judicial primary contests this year, one in the 1st Subcircuit (the Walker vacancy), and one in the 8th Subcircuit (the Gamrath vacancy).

The Chicago Board of Elections says, as of this morning, there are 69,731 outstanding ballots -- but that number is misleadingly high.

There are 2,383 uncounted provisional ballots and 13,187 VBM ballots that have been returned and not yet counted. This leaves 54,161 VBM ballots sent but not yet returned to the CBOE.

As a practical matter, a lot of those aren't going to be returned. Some of those that may be returned in the coming days will be postmarked after March 17 and should not be counted for that reason.

Some of the outstanding, uncounted provisional ballots might be counted, if they turn out to be valid, in the 1st or 8th Subcircuits. Ditto for some of the 13,187 VBM ballots now on hand. But we don't know which ones are which.

What we do know this morning is this: After additional votes were counted yesterday, Tiffany N. Brooks still leads in the 1st Subcircuit Walker race, but now by only 304 votes over Ashley Greer Shambley, 15,829 to 15,525. Her margin has shrunk by 90 votes.

Kathleen Cunniff Ori's lead over Elizabeth Christina Dibler in the 8th Subcircuit Gamrath race has shrunk by 30 votes. The tally now is 13,083 to 12,955.

But there will be more votes to count in both races. In an email to FWIW, Max Bever, the CBOE's Director of Public Information, said, "The Uncounted Vote By Mail and Provisional Ballots will be reported by this evening and be added to the unofficial results daily through March 31."

In other words, it's going to be a while.

If any of you should run across Ms. Brooks, Ms. Greer Shambley, Ms. Ori, or Ms. Dibler today, or anytime in the near future, be nice. Make allowances. And if you should find the person responsible for Votes By Mail, throw a clod of earth at that person for me.