Will County Clerk Lauren Staley Ferry’s Redesign of Voter Registration Cards to Save Taxpayers in Postage

Will County Clerk Lauren Staley Ferry announces that she will begin mailing redesigned Voter Registration Cards that will generate a huge savings to taxpayers on postage and printing costs.

The cards are smaller in size with content that has been streamlined to provide voters with all the information they need while complying with Illinois statute.

Because the cards are smaller, postage costs will drop to 28 cents per unit from 45.9 cents. This will result in an immediate savings of more than $900 on the first small batch of roughly 5,100 cards scheduled for mailing this week.

But the greater savings will be realized through the mass mailing of Voter Registration Cards that is mandated by Illinois statute every two years. Based on current rates, the Clerk’s Office will save taxpayers a combined $161,000 in postage costs for the mass mailing of 450,000 cards in 2020 plus an additional 450,000 cards in 2022.

“I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled we were to crunch these numbers and present this savings to our local taxpayers,” Staley Ferry said. “The information on these sleek, new Voter Registration Cards has been simplified and reorganized to serve our voters in the most efficient manner possible. I will continue looking for ways to improve our services while significantly reducing costs.”

The new cards will also cut printing costs roughly in half because they are now being digitally printed at four cards per page. Prior to Staley Ferry taking office, larger cards were designed at two per page and printed on a four-color press.

Finally, the smaller Voter Registration Cards are more environmentally friendly, reducing waste by increasing the number printed per sheet and reducing the size of the printed area that voters must cut away to make them fit a standard wallet.

The County Clerk thanked Ken Spiegel of Spiegel Associates, Inc. for working with her staff on redesigning the Voter Registration Cards to meet the office’s needs.

Citizens who recently registered to vote will begin receiving the redesigned cards in the near future. The County Clerk’s Office then will send cards to newly registered voters in batches of roughly 1,500 in the coming months. The next mass mailing of Voter Registration Cards is scheduled for the summer of 2020.