Union County clerk shares update about election results

Union County Clerk Lance Meisenheimer shared an update about the March 17 primary election:

The primary election is now over and was a successful election here in Union County.

We did have one issue that I wanted to clear up and let the public know exactly what happened.

This past summer the Union County Board of Commissioners voted to purchase new election equipment from ES&S, which is 100 percent all American made and used in almost 50 percent of all elections nationwide.

The new equipment also would require new tabulation software that goes hand in hand.

Since we purchased the DS 200 tabulator and the Express Vote ballot marking device, the newest equipment available for Illinois elections from ES&S, this was the first time the equipment was used here in Union County.

We required training on this new equipment for all the election judges, the county clerk staff and myself so that we were comfortable with both the new software and equipment.

I’m proud to say that we passed all the pre-tests with the new equipment and extremely proud to say that the new equipment was well received and worked absolutely perfect in the March 17 primary election. We had no issues with the equipment at all.

After 7 p.m., when the polls closed, the judges brought the results to my office.

The tabulation of the elections was handled on the new software system by ES&S called Election Reporting Manager.

The upload of the ballots from the polls to the software went flawless as well. It is very important to let you know that the election was tabulated correctly and there were no issues with the reports and the correct numbers for votes from our office.

The only complication that arose was in reporting the tabulated results onto the Platinum Elections website.

Platinum is the election vendor for Union County and many other counties throughout the state.

Platinum’s role is to set up the ballots, precinct kits, voter’s registration and election data (such as the website results) for our county.

When it was time to start updating the website with the election information, the results would not load onto Platinum’s website.

We then began to contact Platinum and advise them of this issue. 

My office was advised that we were not alone in our struggle, and that every county that had purchased the new equipment and tabulation software from ES&S was experiencing the same issue and they were working on a resolution.

In the meantime, some information somehow loaded onto the website that was not correct. We are still trying to figure out how that happened.

After all 20 precincts had been loaded and tabulated, we then went back to the Election Reporting Manage software system and printed the reports for the unofficial results that wouldn’t upload onto the website.

I then scanned in that report and began making it public as quickly as possible by sending it to all the media outlets and the Union County Clerk & Recorder’s Facebook page.

Platinum worked into the night and after phone calls and emails on the morning of March 18, the results that were loaded onto the website at platinumelectionresults.com were correct.

I’m sorry for any confusion that this process might have caused, and we will make the adjustments to be better in the future. 

We strive to be as transparent as we can and give you nothing but factual information. I do not take this lightly and want to assure you that this office will only provide you with true results in our county elections.

The Gazette-Democrat

112 Lafayette St.
Anna, Illinois 62906
Office Number: (618) 833-2158
Email: news@annanews.com

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