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Election Night Reporting User Guide (PDF)

Overview of Election Night Reporting

Lake County Clerk’s office uses an online tool called Election Night Reporting (ENR) to display election results on a website. The website provides visitors with a graphical view of in-depth county results. Web visitors are presented with a breakdown of votes received for a candidate by contest and totals by vote type. Maps illustrate the precincts which have reported, voter turnout, and results by precinct. Users can customize their view by bookmarking specific contests and building “My Favorite Races” page. Downloadable reports and custom filtering are available. The site contains search capabilities and uses a responsive design to fit the size of the user's viewing screen.
 

When and How Often Will the Results Be Updated?

Election judges at the county’s individual voting sites will begin transmitting their tallies directly to the clerk’s office after polls close and all voters in line at 7 p.m. have been served. Website totals will be updated as new numbers become available from the voting sites.

Election Day totals are the first results to be posted. Since the Election Day reporting transmissions cannot be interrupted, the totals for all mailed and early voted ballots are added afterwards. By statute, these ballots can only be counted in the clerk’s office by election judges after the polls close at 7 p.m. on election night.

Write-in vote totals are generally posted on the clerk’s website within 7 business days. Only contested precinct committeeperson races will be included on this interactive results web page. A complete list of precinct committeeperson races will be posted as PDF on the Election Results home page. 
 

How Do I Navigate Election Night Reporting?

The following pages provide an overview of how to navigate the ENR tool, including the:

• Site Synopsis
• Time Stamp
• Navigation Categories
• My Favorite Races
• Contest Detail
• Sidebar Display
• Reports
• Turnout
• Filters
• Social Media

Site Synopsis
The synopsis appears at the top of the page, regardless of which page or tab is selected. It includes: 

• Language switcher
• Search area
• Election Name
• Clickable tabs to navigate through results and information specific to election

Time Stamp
A time stamp of when the last results were reported to the site is also displayed on each navigation page.

Navigation Categories

• Results
  Races by party and referenda
  This landing page will display a list of all contests for the election.  Scrolling down the page will reveal all contests.
• My Favorite Races
  Specific races bookmarked to watch
• Turnout
  Voter turnout by map and numerical charts

My Favorite Races
The My Favorite Races Tab contains specific contests that have selected. The favorites page will not contain any races, until at least one race has been selected to appear on this page.

Favorite races can be built by returning to the Results Tab and selecting the star symbol beside the contest name.  When a favorite is selected, the star will turn yellow, and the contest will be placed in the My Favorite Races Tab. 

Contest Details
Click on any contest title to see percentage and total number of votes for each candidate.

Click on “View Contest Details” to see:

• Color-coded precinct map of reported totals
• Percentage of votes in numeric or bar chart format
• Percentage of votes by precinct
• Ballots sorted by type (early, by mail, or Election Day) under “Vote Type.”

Additionally, when hovering over the precincts on the map, results from each precinct will appear.

Sidebar                                                                                                         
The Sidebar Area appears on the right hand side of the page, regardless of which page or tab is selected. Information contained in the side bar includes:

• Number of contests.
• Voter turnout percentage
  Based on the ratio of active registered voters to ballots cast
• Downloadable Reports

Reports
Downloadable reports are accessible by clicking the download icon by the report type, in the right sidebar.  File formats include CSV, XLS, XML, and TXT.

Turnout
In Turnout, viewers will find a color-coded precinct map showing percentages, a number representing the general turnout percentage, and a precinct list showing number of ballots cast, registered voters, and voter turnout.

Filters
Click on the Filter icon to select a township or precinct from the drop-down menu and view the results for contests for the specific township or precinct selected. 

Social Share
When clicking the Share icon,  the election results can be shared with social accounts.  The yellow email icon will open up the web visitor's default email account, so that the election link can be shared with the desired recipient.

Viewing on Election Night

Voters and interested parties are urged to visit our Election Results page before Election Day to become familiar with the site’s features. On election night, web visitors should click their browser’s refresh button after they enter the results page to ensure the most recent numbers are being viewed. 

The Clerk’s office cannot provide website troubleshooting on Election Day but will provide current vote count by telephone at (847) 377-2410 starting at 8:00 p.m. on election night.
 

Why don't you display the number of precincts completely reported anymore (i.e. 18 of 19 precincts reporting)?

As our technology has changed and improved, some of our election tools have not. Before 2016, voters in Lake County would go to a precinct table at their polling site to check in. After marking their ballot, they had to put their ballot in a specific ballot counter according to precinct.

In 2016, Lake County got new ballot counters and ePollbooks. Now, voters are processed as they arrive at the next available check in station with an ePollbook. After marking their ballot, voters can put their ballot in any ballot counter. Our new ballot counters hold more data, so now all precincts at a polling site are on each ballot counter. If a ballot counter malfunctions, voters can put their ballot in any of the other ballot counters.

Our election night reporting system marks a precinct as completely reported when results from that precinct come in. Since there may be more results coming in for a precinct from other ballot counters, we don’t want to mark a precinct as completely reported. We have had to remove the precincts reported information because it is misleading. Our election night reporting vendor is aware of this issue, and continually updates us on improvements.

Final Results

Per Illinois election law, results will not be final until 14 days after the election. This allows for any late-arriving voted by mail ballots and the processing of provisional ballots.