Several Republican lawmakers in Illinois are asking for an immediate hearing on the state’s automated voter registration (AVR) program.
The five House GOP members say they’re calling for the hearing based on a recent letter that came to light from the Office of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
The GOP lawmakers say that in the letter to the Illinois State Board of Elections was voter registration information of 574 self-identified non-citizens.
They claim that registration was in-turn forwarded to local election authorities for the finalization of the voter registration process.
In a letter to House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Republicans stated:
“This is an absurd lack of compliance with state law, surfacing less than three weeks from the opening of early voting for our state’s 2020 general primary election. Given this, we are requesting an immediate hearing of the House Executive Committee to investigate this situation and to hear testimony directly from Secretary of State Jesse White, officials of the State Board of Elections, representatives from our local election authorities, and others concerned with this situation. The oversight function of the Legislative Branch regarding this law must be used to hold the Executive Branch accountable for ensuring compliance with state law and to determine if additional legislation is needed to tighten our voter registration laws.”
“We unequivocally support full access to voter registration,” said Butler. “That is why we voted for the AVR program in 2017. However, the potential registration of non-citizens has been a concern since discussions of instituting an AVR program in our state began. This revelation underscores that these concerns are well-founded. There must be no question of the integrity of our elections process, but this situation certainly calls into question how the AVR program has been implemented in Illinois.”
Along with Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, the Republican members of the Executive Committee who signed the letter include Joe Sosnowski (R-Rockford), Ryan Spain (R-Peoria), Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville) and Keith Wheeler (R-Oswego).
The Letter
January 20, 2020
Speaker Michael J. Madigan
Illinois House of Representatives
300 Capitol Building
Springfield, IL 62706
Dear Speaker Madigan:
A December 18, 2019 letter from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office to the Illinois State Board of Elections made public this past week has brought to light a serious breach of supposed protections put in place to ensure the integrity of our voter rolls in the State of Illinois.
As highlighted in that letter, 574 individuals attested to the Secretary of State they were non-citizens of the United States, yet SOS forwarded their information to the State Board of Elections and eventually local election authorities to be registered to vote as part of the automated voter registration program. Incredibly, the Secretary of State’s office allowed this “programming error” to continue unabated for over 17 months before informing the Board of Elections and attempting to correct this violation of law. To date, we have no assurance that these self- identified non-citizens are not actually registered to vote in Illinois.
Each of us supports full access to voting rights for citizens of the United States, which is why we all supported P.A. 100-464, our state’s automatic voter registration law. Yet concern about non-citizens registering to vote has long been an issue with this effort, even being highlighted in former Governor Rauner’s veto message of the 2016 attempt to enact AVR.
This is an absurd lack of compliance with state law, surfacing less than three weeks from the opening of early voting for our state’s 2020 general primary election. Given this, we are requesting an immediate hearing of the House Executive Committee to investigate this situation and to hear testimony directly from Secretary of State Jesse White, officials of the State Board of Elections, representatives from our local election authorities, and others concerned with this situation. The oversight function of the Legislative Branch regarding this law must be used to hold the Executive Branch accountable for ensuring compliance with state law and to determine if additional legislation is needed to tighten our voter registration laws.
Given the approaching election, we anticipate your expedient response to our request for an immediate hearing.
Sincerely,
Tim Butler Keith Wheeler Joe Sosnowski
87th District 50th District 69th District
Grant Wehrli Ryan Spain
41st District 73rd District
