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Judicial Watch announced Friday a federal judge ordered the
Illinois State Board of Elections to turn over voter roll data
to the Illinois Conservative Union and three registered voters.
The state had allowed review in person in Springfield during
limited hours, but that was 200 miles from where the plaintiffs
live.
Friday’s ruling means plaintiffs will get access to digital
copies of voter rolls for the past 15 elections to include
“registrant’s full name … residential street address … email
address … telephone number, county and state voter
identification number, age of the registrant, and the
registrant’s status (active or inactive) and the most recent
date the entry was changed.”
“Clean voter rolls mean cleaner elections,” Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton said. “This is a victory for all legal
voters in Illinois. Voters will now have the transparency that
federal law requires in order to ensure elections in Illinois
are more honest and cleaner.”
Judicial Watch also announced forthcoming research it plans to
release based on recent census data and information Illinois
reported to the federal Election Assistance Commission that
shows 14% of Illinois’ counties have more registered voters than
citizens over 18, indicating the state has close to 800,000
inactive registrants.
“Those are staggering numbers and the very reason why we need
the openness and transparency in an effort to clean up these
voter rolls, again, just another step to try and restore faith
in the system, in the election system, for the voters of
Illinois,” state Rep. Brad Halbrook told The Center Square.
As a member of the Illinois House Ethics and Elections
Committee, Halbrook argued for changes.
“These 40 day, prior to election day, vote by mail, early
voting, ballots can be counted up to 14 days, the potential with
rank-choice voting on the horizon, all of this stuff is not good
for clean and fair elections and has to be reformed,” Halbrook
said.
Judicial Watch has a pending lawsuit challenging Illinois’
weeks-long election process, arguing federal elections should be
decided on election day, not weeks after.
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