ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Currently only eight states in the country -- Washington, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Vermont, along with the District of Columbia --allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.
The state of Illinois could soon be the ninth state to be able to conduct their elections by mail. Illinois State Rep. Carol Ammons (D) has introduced legislation in the statehouse in Springfield, Illinois that could make election all mail possible in the future.
Ammons explained to Total Information A.M. Wednesday that her legislation isn't an full statewide vote by mail, but it would let clerks to be able to send ballots to all registered voters in their jurisdiction automatically.
"This is not the full vote by mail option you see in the state of Utah and Colorado," said Ammons. "This is the step that both states took before they got statewide vote by mail."
Ammons explained that the benefits from changing to an all mail-in ballots would mean more participation in elections from residents in Illinois.
"What we saw during our hearing in Champagne about a week ago is the participation increases dramatically in local, state and national elections (with all mail-in voting)" said Ammons.
Another benefit from the change would potentially be saving money on renting out space for polling locations, and paying election judges.
"My county( which includes Champagne) literally had 67 polling locations," said Ammons. "You would not have to fund and get election judges at each of those locations. These would simply go into your home and people can take their time to look at their ballot and research the candidate and simply mail them back from the comfort of their home."