By Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois Republicans want to suspend the state’s automatic voter registration program until a programming error that added more than 500 people who indicated they weren’t U.S. citizens to vote rolls is fully investigated and corrected.
Lawmakers passed the automatic voter registration law in 2017. The program automatically registers people to vote when they interact with certain state agencies.
“Last month we discovered an isolated programming error that impacted 574 people out of more than 600,000 of those registered through the Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) program,” Secretary of State Jesse White said in a statement Wednesday. “While this represents only 1/10 of one percent, it is still not acceptable and we apologize for the error.”
Officials with White’s office have said the problem has been fixed. However, the Illinois State Board of Elections said more than a dozen votes were cast in elections over the past 18 months from the pool of people who were improperly registered to vote.
State Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Raymond, said the program should be suspended because it could affect other state agencies, not just the Secretary of State’s office.
“This was supposed to be implemented last July, so we know that there have been issues with implementation, but we don’t know for certain if they’re having the same issues that they’ve had at the Secretary of State,” Bourne said. “And so until we know that this is being implemented correctly, we need to suspend AVR and get the answers.”
Bourne said they want to hear from the Department of Human Services, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and the Department of Employment Security, the state agencies that are also part of the automatic voter registration program.
U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, joined the statehouse Republicans. He said this should be a wakeup call for Congress.
“We’ve got to make sure that protocols are in place in states that should be used to programs like this to ensure that it’s ready to go before we roll something out that’s gonna take a federal top-down approach,” Davis said.
State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, said the issue must be fully vetted ahead of the start of early voting on Feb. 6 for the March 17 primary election.
“As for our request, the five members of the [House] Executive Committee, to hold a hearing with the Executive Committee, we made that request at 8 a.m. Monday morning,” Butler said. “We have yet to hear a response from the Speaker’s office when it comes to a request for a hearing.”
House Speaker Michael Madigan’s office didn’t respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.
State Rep. Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch, chairman of the House Executive Committee, said the mistakes were serious and called on officials with the Secretary of State’s office to answer questions about what happened.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday in Chicago that he doesn’t have the authority to suspend the automatic voter registration system as Republicans requested.
“But I do have the ability to make sure that we have hearings about it and that all of the information about what happened here, the glitches that took place and why they happened, are brought to the fore so everybody knows and so we can make sure that it never happens again,” Pritzker said.
Illinois Secretary of State’s Office officials said they’re open to taking part in a legislative hearing, but the program doesn’t need to be suspended because the issue had been corrected.
“It is unnecessary to put a hold on the Automatic Voter Registration program,” Secretary of State spokesman Henry Haupt said. “The isolated programming error was fixed and the program is working.”
The State Board of Elections said the only state agencies that have implemented the automatic voter registration program outside of the Secretary of State’s office were the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Human Services.
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