Illinois mistakenly lists over 1,000 voters as not registered
This revelation is the third mistake involving the Illinois Secretary of State concerning voter registration since January.
Illinois wrongly listed 1,151 residents as not registered to vote ahead of the March 17 primary, according to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Secretary of State and election officials are unsure exactly how the error was made but notified local election offices of the problem March 9. They do know the problem occurred when residents were applying for their REAL ID. The problem does not come from a computer glitch, but rather from a clerical error which could be caused by many different things.
At this point, election officials don’t believe the error has stopped anyone from voting. Illinois allows voters to register to vote when they show up at their polling location for early voting or on election day. Local election judges were told in the March 9 letter from the State Board of Elections that they are to let affected individuals vote.
Election board spokesman Matt Dietrich told the Sun-Times about 200 registered voters in suburban Cook County, 140 in Chicago, 100 in DuPage County, 80 in Will County, 60 in Lake County, 50 in Kane County and 20 in McHenry County were impacted by the error.
In total, 87 local election authorities were affected.
Earlier this year, the Secretary of State faced an error that allowed non-U.S. citizens to become registered to vote. WCIA-TV reported 574 non-citizens were registered to vote despite identifying as non-citizens and checking the “no” box when prompted to registered to vote while renewing their licenses. Of these individuals, 19 were able to vote in the 2018 election.
Additionally, about 4,700 16-year-olds were mistakenly forwarded to the board of elections by the state’s automatic voter registration system after registering for a driver’s license. The system is supposed to stop ineligible voters or those who check “no” from being sent to the board of elections for voter registration.
In response, Illinois Republicans have called for the suspension of Illinois’ automatic voter registration system and want the system to be audited.
“We’ve been assured for over two months now that problems have been fixed, yet problems continue to come up,” said state Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, at a news conference on March 11. “I’ve lost complete confidence in the Secretary of State being able to carry out this program.”
Over 800,000 people have registered to vote via automatic registration since it was passed in 2017 by the General Assembly, according to the Daily Herald.