Aurora has had its own Election Commission since 1934. Voters on March 20 will decide whether that will continue. People through the years have called for the abolition of the Aurora Election Commission, calling it an unneeded governmental body, inefficient and out-moded. Others defend the commission as a convenience to Aurora voters, and a hedge against politics and the possibility of playing games with elections. In 1986, voters decidedly rejected an attempt to abolish the commission with about 60 percent of the voters supporting it. In the 1990s, another effort to put the question on the ballot never got that far.
The Aurora Election Commission was created by referendum in 1934 at a time when there was no statewide voter registration. People went to polling places and signed an affidavit that they lived where they did, and then voted. The commission was seen as a way to locally control elections that some Aurorans then thought were manipulated by the city of Elgin through the county government in Geneva.
Eventually, voter registration became mandated statewide through county clerk offices where there was not already an election jurisdiction. So, the Kane County clerk began registering voters in the rest of Kane County. Many people thought the Aurora Election Commission became superfluous then.
Full Article: Voters to decide fate of Aurora Election Commisson – Aurora Beacon-News.