Madison County Clerk Debra Ming Mendoza, Democrat, has lost her bid to newcomer Linda Andreas, Republican.
Unofficial totals for the position of Record and Clerk - election overseer - show Andreas with 49,573 votes to Ming-Mendoza's 46,842.
A turning point in the election may likely have come from recent errors in the Clerk's office that caused ballots of more than 100 registered voters in Edwardsville Precinct 3 to include three judicial races.
On Oct. 26, Ming Mendoza confirmed that 160 ballots were erroneously coded as being within the bounds of Judicial Subcircuit 1, and that a "handful" of early voters or mail voters were incorrectly allowed to vote in the circuit court judge races.
"Her latest blunder is that she mislabeled ballots causing people to vote in the wrong Judicial Subcircuit," Andreas said. "This means that those early voters have been disenfranchised in the Judicial Subcircuit that they live in."
Ming-Mendoza said ballots were incorrectly coded because the wrong subcircuit map was posted to the county’s website. She described it as human error, and also said she would not “throw anyone under the bus.” She also accepted responsibility for the errors.
She called the situation "serious," and said she was in talks with the State’s Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office as to how the remediation process is handled.
Andreas earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Goldfarb School of Nursing and a bachelor’s degree in workforce education and development from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Andreas says that while she is not a politician, she seeks to support policies and procedures that protect Madison County residents’ votes and provide more transparency and accessibility.
In the June 28 primary, she defeated Mike Walters, who has served as a member of the County Board for more than 15 years.