Kendall County voters to receive new registration cards in mail

YORKVILLE – Voters should check their new registration cards when they arrive in the mail.

County Clerk Debbie Gillette said the new voter cards should start arriving at residences in a couple of weeks.

There are 84,000 registered voters in Kendall County, Gillette said, and each will receive a new card.

Changes to look for include not only shifts in legislative districts resulting from decennial redistricting, but in some cases the designated polling place.

Gillette said some voting precincts have been combined, bringing many of the new precincts up to roughly 1,200 voters.

However, the increase in the number of voters is not expected to cause Election Day delays at polling places, Gillette said, because so many people are now taking advantage of early-voting and vote-by-mail opportunities.

The next election will be the general primary election on Tuesday, June 28.

One thing that will not change is the county board district in which voters live.

Kendall County is served by 10 county board members, five each elected from just two districts.

The dividing line which splits the county into west and east portions will remain unchanged, even as state legislative and congressional districts are reapportioned to reflect population changes recorded in the 2020 Census.

When the county began reviewing the results of last year’s Census, bringing Kendall County to slightly less than 132,000 residents, it was found that the difference in population between the two districts is now just 283 people, or a margin of less than 1%.

Seeing no reason the reapportion the districts, county board members approved a plan to leave the existing boundary line in place.

District 1 covers the western side of the county and is geographically the larger of the two.

It includes most of Yorkville and portions of Montgomery and Sandwich, along with Plano, Bristol, Millbrook, Plattville, Newark and Lisbon.

District 2 includes Oswego, Boulder Hill and portions of Yorkville, Montgomery, Aurora, Plainfield, Minooka and Joliet.

Every 10 years, all of the county board seats are up for election. After voters render their decisions next year, the board will draw straws to determine who will serve two-year terms and who will get a four-year stretch.

With the staggered terms of office decided, half the board will be up for election every two years until the next Census.

County board members from District 1 include Judy Gilmour, Amy Cesich, Scott Gengler and Ruben Rodriguez, all of Yorkville, and Brian DeBolt of Plano.

District 2 is represented by Scott Gryder, Robyn Vickers and Dan Koukol, all of Oswego, Matt Kellogg of Yorkville and Elizabeth Flowers of Montgomery.

Gryder currently serves as the county board chairman, a post which is voted upon by the board members.

County board candidates run with partisan political labels attached. Cesich, Flowers and Vickers are Democrats, while the other seven members are Republicans.

In next year’s balloting, the winners will be the top five vote-getters in each district.