A state notorious for voter fraud, and its role in a disputed presidential election, has agreed to clean up its voter rolls and turn over 15 years of information on voter registrations.
The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch settled a federal election integrity lawsuit against the state of Illinois, the Illinois State Board of Elections, and its director.
The settlement, in a suit filed on behalf of the Illinois Conservative Union “grants access to the current centralized statewide list of registered voters for the state for the past 15 elections,” Judicial Watch reports.
“Clean voter rolls mean cleaner elections. 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 President Tom Fitton said.
Illinois has long been the subject of rumors and jokes about mass voter fraud, it is alleged that voter fraud in Illinois handed Democrat nominee John F. Kennedy the narrowly-decided 1960 presidential election.
“State officials had refused to allow the nonprofit Illinois Conservative Union and three lawfully registered Illinois voters to obtain a copy of the state’s voter registration list, despite their lawful request for those records under federal law,” Judicial Watch reports.
“The State Board allowed access to the records but made any meaningful review impossible, requiring the plaintiffs to travel to Springfield, Illinois during limited working hours and review Illinois’ millions of voter records one at a time on a computer terminal, with no ability to sort or organize records,” Judicial Watch adds.
That does not comply with federal law.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 provides that states “shall make available for public inspection and, where available, photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”
The settlement was approved by U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis, and states:
Pursuant to this Agreement, Defendants shall provide to Plaintiffs the current centralized statewide list of registered voters for Illinois (the “Illinois Voter Registration List”) in electronic format, with all fields provided to political committees, including but not limited to fields indicating the 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, and voting history for the last fifteen (15) elections.
Judicial Watch alleges that by not removing voters who have died or moved out of state, Illinois’ has created the opportunity for mass voter fraud.
“A forthcoming Judicial Watch study, based on recent census data and information Illinois reported to the federal Election Assistance Commission, reveals that 14% of Illinois’ counties have more registered voters than citizens over 18, while Illinois as a whole has close to 800,000 inactive registrants,” Judicial Watch reports.
