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New automated Vote-By-Mail system coming together for Clerk’s office

Will County Clerk Lauren Staley Ferry earlier this week accepted the first major piece of equipment to automate the Vote By Mail program in Will County. The high-speed, state-of-the-art EvoluJet Printer from BlueCrest has the capability of printing 2,200 ballots per hour. Specialists from BlueCrest and the manufacturer, Kyocera, were on hand to assemble the EvoluJet’s components and make the necessary adjustments to begin printing test ballots on location at the Will County Clerk’s Office. The EvoluJet Printer will be joined by two other major pieces of equipment: The high-speed Relia-Vote MSE Inserter will automate the assembly of Vote By Mail packets, and the Relia-Vote Vantage Sorter will streamline the sorting of Vote By Mail packets for outbound mailing and for organizing return ballots. These three machines will improve efficiency and accuracy across the entire Vote By Mail program. They also will save Will County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each election compared to the cost of assembling and processing Vote By Mail Ballots manually. Staley Ferry announced back in August that the Will County Board had unanimously approved $1.9 million in funding to purchase equipment to automate her office’s growing Vote By Mail program.

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COMMENTARY: After Record Turnout in 2020, Texas Set to Pass Most Restrictive Voting Laws in the U.S.

NNPA NEWSWIRE – The new Texas bill, SB7, mandates that you can vote with gun permit but not student ID, no online voter registration, individuals must be deputized to register voters, voters under 65 can’t use fear of COVID to vote by mail. In addition, Texas has closed 750 polling places since the U.S. Supreme Court under John Roberts destroyed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with their Shelby vs. Holder decision in 2013.

Posted in#NNPA BlackPress, Black History, Community, Featured, National, News, NNPA, NNPA Newswire, Politics, Stacy Brown

Biden: ‘Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people must be protected and defended’

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy. Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people must be protected and defended,” President Biden remarked during the Martin & Coretta Scott King Unity Breakfast. “But many Americans, especially people of color, confront significant obstacles to exercising that fundamental right. These obstacles include difficulties with voter registration, lack of election information, and barriers to access at polling places.”

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