McHenry Times

If you put wrong numbers into your calculations, you're going to get wrong answers, McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan said recently in response to allegations by a conservative government oversight group that her county was among 24 in Illinois to have illegal voter rolls.

“We think they’re using Census numbers that were projected as opposed to actual numbers,” McClellan told the McHenry Times. “That’s where the discrepancy comes in. It’s a case of garbage in and garbage out.”

Judicial Watch sent letters to 11 states threatening lawsuits if counties in those states did not rectify their voter registration numbers. The group accused the counties of having more registered voters than voting-age residents.

“What we regularly do will suffice in answering what they’re inquiring about,” McClellan said. “They will be able to see we’ve done everything we’re required to do by law in the time frame that they have laid out.”

McClellan said her office will soon purge its voter rolls on the same schedule she’s used since she took office in 2014.

“As part of that, we’ll send out new cards to every registered voter,” she said. “It’s what we did during my first six months in office when we purged around 20,000 names.”

Judicial Watch also said it found violations in Alexander, Bureau, Cass, Clark, Crawford, DuPage, Franklin, Grundy, Hardin, Henderson, Jefferson, Jersey, Massac, Mercer, Monroe, Pulaski, Rock Island, Sangamon, Scott, Union, Wabash, Washington and White counties.

All the counties were given 90 days to clear up the discrepancy or face legal action from Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch officials said their calculations are based on figures from the U.S. Census Bureau and other government agencies. 

Besides Illinois, the group targeted Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee.