SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) - The Illinois State Board of Elections has dispelled rumors about Sharpie use causing issues with ballots.Â
The ISBE said it wants voters who used Sharpie pens when filling out ballots in Illinois to know their votes counted.
On Election Day and since then, officials said they took calls from voters saying polling places gave them Sharpie pens to mark ballots. These callers were concerned about problems using these pens might cause.Â
The ISBE pointed out Sharpie ballot-marking pens are the recommended utensil for marking ballots for Dominion Voting Systems, which are used by the Cook County Clerk's Office and Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Polling places who use Dominion equipment were given recommended Sharpie pens for the use of voters. Â
Officials then went on to address issues about issues that could have been caused by Sharpie ink.Â
"The State Board of Elections also received calls from voters concerned that ink from the Sharpie pens may have bled through the ballot to cause inadvertent marks on the reverse side," an ISBE statement said. "Some of these voters reported they had used traditional felt-tipped Sharpie markers, not the fine-point version recommended for Dominion systems, and were concerned about additional risk of bleed-through.
"Ballots in Illinois are designed so that the 'target area' -- the oval to be filled in to mark a vote -- on one side of a ballot does not align with a target area on the reverse side of the ballot. Thus, a vote on the reverse side could not be accidentally cast by ink soaking through.
"If ink were to bleed through to the reverse side of the ballot and produce a mark sufficiently prominent to be detected by the tabulator, the ballot would be returned to the voter for correction."Â
Leaders said the 108 local election authorities in Illinois go through "extensive testing" of statewide election equipment before each election. They said testing is meant to prevent issues such as inadvertent ballot marks or the accidental use of writing tools that haven't been approved from causing votes to go uncounted.Â
"Election judges are trained in procedures to ensure that ballots rejected by a tabulator can be remade and properly recorded," the ISBE said. "The Illinois election community appreciates the attention voters have paid to this detail in the voting process."
