Monday, February 07, 2005

14-day grace period registration bill signed into law

Good news today. Governor Blagojevich signed SB 2133 into law. Here is his press release. That's the bill that extends voter registration an additional two weeks, creating a 14-day grace period where citizens may register to vote if they do so in-person at the office of the election authority from 28 days to 14 days before an election. The bill is here.

Representative Robin Kelly and Senator James Meeks deserve a lot of credit for this legislation. Unfortunately the Governor didn't have a bill signing ceremony so they could get some acclaim, but hey, at least he signed it and is now making some noice about the bill.

If you'd like more details on the bill, I have some here.

3 comments:

IlliniPundit said...

Congrats, Dan. Now let's get working on a bill that requires photo IDs to vote!

Stephen said...

Nice job of legislating a positive change. I like the amendments that accomodate the likely workload impact at County Clerk offices throughout the state. A lot of County Clerks have not yet adapted their records & procedures to the digital age.

Dan Johnson said...

No way, IlPundit. I'm not a fan of IDs to vote. A signature match, and the threat of felony prosecution, is good enough for me. The amendments should (I hope) make the bill workable for the election authorities. Now the challenge is making sure people get how the new rules work. Well, defining 'now' as a year from now in February 2006.