Kendall County clerk set to mail 86,400 voter registration cards

There are about 86,400 registered voters in Kendall County and each one will be receiving a new voter registration card soon.

The Kendall County Clerk’s Elections Office will start mailing out the cards in batches on July 17.

County Clerk Debbie Gillette said voters should keep the cards for reference during the upcoming 2024 elections.

Elections Director Natalie Hisaw said information on the card includes the location of the voter’s polling place, one of 39 in Kendall County. The card also lists the voter’s congressional, state senate, state representative and county board districts.

The information on the purple and white card should not have changed from the cards that voters received last year after the legislative redistricting performed to reflect population changes in the 2020 census.

This year’s mailing keeps the county compliant with a state mandate designed to help election officials purge the voter rolls of residents who no longer occupy a given address.

“We’re asking all voters who receive a voter registration card for someone who no longer is living at that residence to please return those voter registration cards,” Gillette said.

The recipient should simply write on the voter registration card “Return to sender - No longer at this address,” and place the card back in the mailbox for the Post Office to return, Hisaw said.

Once the county Elections Office has received the returned card, a confirmation of address card will be sent to the same address again, as required by Illinois law, Hisaw said.

The recipient is asked to return the confirmation card, as well, in the same manner as the voter card, then allowing the Elections Office remove the voter who no longer lives there from the registration rolls.

Hisaw said when the county goes through this procedure, about 5,000 of the voter registration cards come back. If voters spot any error on their registration card, they should write the correction in a space on the back of the card and return it to the Elections Office.

Voters will next go to the polls on March 19, 2024, for the primary election.

The deadline for registering in-person at the Elections Office, public libraries and other designated locations is Feb. 20, Hisaw said.

For those registering on the Illinois State Board of Elections website, the registration deadline is March 3.