The Aurora Election Commission is no more.
Judge David Akemann, of the 16th Circuit, recently issued an order closing the commission, carrying out the wishes of the Aurora electorate that voted in the March primary to eliminate it.
Election-related matters now will be handled by the county clerks in the sections of Aurora in Kane, Will and Kendall counties. The DuPage Election Commission will continue to handle those duties in the sections of Aurora in that county.
They will run the Nov. 6 election in their respective counties.
The bulk of the change is in Kane, where the Kane County clerk’s office will add 63 Aurora precincts and more than 50,000 registered voters.
There are seven Aurora precincts in Will County, and three in Kendall County.
John Cunningham, Kane County Clerk, said although the order was just entered, “we have been making preparations for this day.”
“We developed and have executed a plan to assume the election and voter registration functions of the (election commission),” he said in a press release.
As part of taking over administration of Aurora elections, the Kane clerk’s office also will open a satellite office in downtown Aurora in a city-owned space in the Stolp Island parking garage.
It will provide other clerk services, too, such as birth, death, marriage and civil union records, passports, tax redemption, and applications for marriage and civil union licenses.
The office is where Aurorans now will go to register to vote.
The city of Aurora and the Kane County Board this year agreed on a lease for that office.
Akemann did not rule on how money left over from the election commission should be allocated, almost $500,000.
The money has been placed in trust with the Kane County circuit clerk’s office, and those who believe they should have any of the money can claim it as part of “a kind of abbreviated claims process,” said Ross Secler, an attorney with Odelson Sterk, Ltd., the Evergreen Park-based firm that represented the city throughout the closing process.
Secler said those claiming money could be vendors who believe the commission still owes them money, but could also be the three county clerk offices, and the city of Aurora, who all believe some of the money is theirs.
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“They are all trying to work together to make sure the money is used for the best purpose,” Secler said.
The clerk offices have said they need some of the money to cover additional costs they now have for running elections. Aurora has said some of the money is what they paid toward election commission operations.