On Wednesday, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Nathaniel Howse ruled unconstitutional the wording on this year's Illinois ballots that puts the option of a constitutional convention before the voters.  The sticking point is a sentence informing voters of the outcome in 1988, the last time the electorate had the opportunity to decide whether to hold a convention (75 percent voted nay that year).  Today, the court is hearing testimony on possible ways to remedy this problem.

Our own Angela Caputo is at the court and just called in with the following update. 

Apparently, Lt. Gov Pat Quinn -- who led the effort to highlight the problematic language -- is proposing that election officials present voters with a separate paper ballot featuring the revised Con-Con question.  Those paper ballots would then be hand-counted.  The Cook County Clerk's office responded that this would require each polling place to set up a station for the regular ballot and a station for the con-con ballot, which they contend would be a logistical nightmare.  They've also said that it's too late to change the language programmed into the electronic voting machines that 60 percent of suburban Cook County voters will use on Election Day.  Proponents have responded to these logistical concerns by pointing out that a separate paper ballot was used in 1968, the first time the Con-Con questioned appeared on Illinois ballots.

So what are the election officials proposing as an alternative?  Cook County Clerk David Orr suggested sending out a mailer to every voter prior to Election Day that notes the problematic language and addresses the problem. With 8.3 million registered voters statewide, this would cost an estimated $200,000.  So what exactly would the flyer say?  That's unclear at the moment.  Perhaps it will instruct voters to disregard the language. producing flyers that perhaps note the problematic language and instruct voters to disregard it. The flyers could be mailed only to those who've received absentee ballots, with the rest being handed out at the polling places.  Another idea is to run some sort of ad campaign to make voters aware of the faulty language.

As a side note, some are also questioning how the problematic sentence made its way onto the ballot in the first place.  In March, the General Assembly passed legislation creating the Joint Committee for the Constitutional Convention Proposal, which was to consist of "two members each appointed by the four legislative leaders," according to the Legislative Research Unit.  Both chambers then adopted the committee's report -- which laid out the ballot language -- in May.  Problem is, no one seems to know the identities of the eight appointees.