LaSalle County IT says election-judge payments completed after file-format error; staff working with vendor to restore full workflow

LaSalle County IT staff told the IT & Central Services Committee on May 1 that election-judge payments were completed after county and vendor staff worked around a file-format problem that prevented automated processing.

John Hague of the county’s IT office said the county normally receives a file with 29 columns containing voter ID, Social Security numbers, names, addresses, precinct totals and other fields used to balance election-judge payments. "When we got the file on April 17, it had 3 columns, and we had multiple missing information," Hague said. Because CIC (the county payment processor) cannot accept blank fields, IT staff and GBS staff copied the specific fields CIC required into a script CIC could ingest so checks could be printed and mailed.

Before checks were issued, the auditor printed a report showing every election judge and payment amount; county court staff then reverified the records, Hague said, and the checks were issued. "Judges were paid," Hague said.

Hague told the committee the county is continuing work with GBS and with CIC to either restore the old 29-column export flow or to formalize the new, quicker process used to get payments out. He described two options going forward: continue using the faster method that required less internal balancing, or invest staff time to get the legacy reporting to operate again with the county’s internal systems.

Committee members asked whether IT has been working directly with the software vendors’ engineers; Hague said IT has been collaborating with GBS to manipulate a few lines of code and to identify the exact fields CIC requires. A committee member noted similar filing problems in other jurisdictions and urged a permanent fix so the cycle does not repeat before the next election.

The meeting record shows the discussion was for information and troubleshooting; no formal policy or procurement decision was made during the session. IT staff said they will continue reconciling the differing file formats and return with a recommendation if substantive changes to process or vendor interfaces are needed.

The committee accepted routine IT and central-services reports and approved related bills earlier in the meeting.