Illinois residents could see a radical departure from the state's current voter registration law by 2010.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is investigating moving to same-day voter registration in two years. That means a person who was eligible to register but had not done so could walk into a polling place on Election Day, register to vote and be handed a ballot.

Madigan established an eight-member commission to look into the ramifications of same-day registration, and it is required to report its findings by year's end. The commission held a hearing Wednesday in Springfield with county clerks to get their input.

"This is the first time anyone in Illinois has taken a serious look at this," said Steve Bean, Macon County clerk. "It would cost the county some money, and I don't know where that money would come from."

There is quite a distance between proposing a change in state law, passage of that proposal by both legislative houses and a signature by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"This idea has been around for a number of years, but apparently, Cook County is now for it," Bean said.

Bean said the impact of same-day registration has been profound in other states. For example, he said, during the last general election in Minnesota, 60 percent of the people with changes to their registration status - new voter, new address or change in name - registered or reregistered on Election Day.

One of the big problems of waiting until election day to register could be determining where to vote, Bean said. If a person went to the wrong polling place, the election judges could register the person but then would have to send him to the correct poll to cast a ballot, he said.

"Some years, we have up to 5,000 changes in registration," Bean said. "The county would have to spend a lot more on printing ballots and buying laptop computers with wireless Internet for each poll so the new registrations could be forwarded to my office and become part of the database."

There also would be a need for more poll workers to help people seeking to register or make changes to their registration, Bean said.

Based on past legislative performance in requiring counties to provide services, Bean said the proposal "looks like it could be a great unfunded state mandate."

MACON COUNTY has received about 250 mail-in voter registration forms forwarded by the Illinois State Board of Elections, which received them from a mass mailing done by the Voter Participation Center of Boston, Mass.

The mailer, intended to promote registration and voting, especially among women, has been an expensive proposition for state and local officials. It directed recipients to return the form to the state, which has received more than 40,000 of them so far and expects upward of 60,000 could arrive before Election Day.

Bean said a number of people who received the three-part registration forms only filled in one part and returned it or failed to sign the form even when it was completed properly.

"We're sending letters to those people along with another registration form to try to get them registered properly," Bean said.

WITH THE GENERAL ELECTION only five weeks away, Bean is in near panic mode over the lack of people volunteering as election judges. Five are required in each of the county's 87 precincts.

Depending on the party line vote in the past three gubernatorial elections, the mix of judges in a precinct can be three Republicans and two Democrats or vice versa.

Many former judges have died or retired and moved out of the county, Bean said. Especially needed are Republicans in Decatur and Friends Creek townships, Democrats in the rural townships and both parties in Maroa and Niantic townships, he said.

"I've placed paid ads in the Herald & Review and Decatur Tribune, and this week I have ads on Brian Byers' and Rush Limbaugh's radio shows trying to recruit judges," Bean said.

Anyone interested can call his office at 424-1305.

ringram@hereld-review.com|421-7973 and klowe@herald-review.com|421-7985