The 2024 presidential election in Tazewell County included two instances of double voting.
That’s according to county clerk John Ackerman, who called a news conference Tuesday to discuss the incorrectly cast votes. He said the double votes were the result of non-malicious human erro, on the part of both the voters and Tazewell County election judges.
Ackerman identified the voters as Voter A and Voter B, choosing not to share their identities because the Tazewell County State’s Attorney’s Office has decided not to pursue criminal charges after an investigation.
Voter A is an 86-year old woman from Tremont. She voted early on Oct. 18, 2024, and voted again on Election Day.
Voter B is a 66-year old man from East Peoria. He requested a vote-by-mail ballot, received the ballot on Oct. 11, 2024 and then also cast a second vote on Election Day in November.
“My understanding is, when the [state’s attorney] investigator interviewed these individuals at their homes…both did not appear to remember what they had done,” said Ackerman. “That it doesn’t appear to be anything malicious.”
Ackerman said his office keeps an internal list of voters associated with incidents like these and will elevate the urgency of cases if they’re found to violate election rules multiple times. Ackerman said they also spoke with the county’s election judges to stress the importance of taking time to make sure every voter is eligible, and to avoid mistakes like the ones that led to the double votes in 2024.
In Voter A’s case, an election judge did not properly cross out names in the book of ballot applications to avoid any individuals who had already participated in early voting. In Voter B’s case, an election judge overlooked the mark on his ballot application indicating he had already voted.
“I will point out to you, 62% of our votes from that election were done on election day. So our election judges weren't sitting around doing nothing,” said Ackerman. “The polling locations were flooded. We also had a historic amount of new voters coming out to vote, registering to vote right there.”
Both of the double votes were tabulated as a part of the 2024 presidential election, because, as Ackerman pointed out, there’s no way to determine whose ballot is whose after it goes into the ballot box.
Ackerman said he could have decided not to share these cases with the public, particularly because there are no impending criminal charges. However, he wants the cases to serve as an example.
“This isn't a point of shaming them, but just a point that this office does its job,” said Ackerman. “That there are procedures and policies in place to mitigate this risk, to catch individuals that accidentally or maliciously do this, and that there are penalties that could follow in the future if it's discovered that something like this would have been malicious.”
Ackerman said, generally speaking, errors like these one are uncommon in Tazewell County elections. He said the audit of the 2025 General Consolidated Election has been completed without incident.
