Friends of Miguel Valente

10/19/2026

10/17/2026

Slots are still available for people interested in serving as an election judge on Nov. 3, according to the chief election authority for Sangamon County.

Article link in comments.

10/16/2026

The Taqueria El Pollo restaurant on West Jefferson will be closing at the end of the month after six years in business.

Article link in comments.

10/15/2026

10/15/2026

Important information for vote-by-mail voters 🚨
Mail postmark rules have changed. Ballots are now postmarked when processed, not when you drop them in the mailbox—this can cause 1–2 day delays.
If you’re returning your ballot close to Election Day:
• Request a manual postmark at the post office
• Use a secure drop box
• Deliver directly to your election office
Don’t risk a late postmark. Make sure your vote counts. 🗳️

10/15/2026

🗳️ FACT CHECK: Election Judge Initials on Ballots

Under Illinois law, election judges must initial ballots before issuing them to voters. These initials help verify that a ballot was officially issued, and ballots missing required initials may be rejected.

🔴 Red ink is commonly used because it is designed not to interfere with ballot tabulation equipment.

Election judge initials do NOT disqualify your ballot. They are an important safeguard in the election process.

Before sharing alarming claims, verify election information with your local election authority or visit elections.il.gov.

10/09/2026

10/07/2026

Join us for our October statewide meeting! We'll discuss everything we accomplished this year and how we did on our goals. We'll be providing updates on the RCV local option bill being worked on in the statehouse, RCV for Chicago, and our different chapter initiatives

10/05/2026

UPDATE 8:30 PM: Power was restored to all remaining customers (on the Durkin substation) by 8:25 pm. See photo in comments for main cause (blown arrestor B phase on the line side).

UPDATE 7:55 PM: Power was restored to customers served by the Old Jacksonville substation around 7:50 p.m. Current indication is a faulted lightning arrestor on a motor operated switch at Old Jack Substation.. Troubleshooters are patrolling to see if we can pick up Durkin substation customers next.

UPDATE 7:45 PM: Over 7,300 customers are impacted in this outage. We have received reports of a fire near the Old Jacksonville substation. Springfield Illinois Fire Department had also responded and they report seeing a fire at a transformer. Substation crews have been called and troubleshooters are patrolling the overhead and are now investigating at the substation. Crews will work to isolate the outage area down to a smaller group once the specific trouble spot is found.

UPDATE 7:15 PM. This outage is impacting customers served by our Old Jacksonville and Durkin substations. Once we have more information on cause we will post here.

FROM EARLIER: CWLP crews are responding to a power outage affecting customers served by our Durkin substation cause is not known at this time. We'll update as more information is available.

We'll be updating the outage map soon an uou can follow status https://outagemap.cwlp.com/.