By Illinois Radio Network

Despite more problems surfacing with Illinois’ Automatic Voter Registration Program, the Secretary of State’s office isn’t giving in to pressure to suspend the program.

When someone interacts with a state agency, like getting a drivers’ license from the Secretary of State’s office or other services through other state agencies, state law automatically sends that person’s information to local elections officials to register him or her to vote, unless the individual opts out. But some major problems have surfaced. 

Earlier this month, it was revealed that more than 500 likely non-citizens were registered to vote more than a year and a half. 

This week, the state revealed that 300 people who selected to opt out of registering were still forwarded to local elections officials to be registered to vote. 

Secretary of State Press Secretary Henry Haupt said there were also thousands of 16-year-olds forwarded to local election authorities to register to vote “because some 16-year-olds will be 17 by the next primary and 18 by the next general election.” 

State law allows for someone 17 years old to register to vote for a primary if they’re 18th birthday is before the general election. 

“We sent out 4,700 letters to rejected applicants explaining what had happened since the start of AVR,” said Illinois State Board of Elections Public Information Officer Matt Dietrich. 

Later in the day, Haupt provided an update. 

“We met with the Illinois State Board of Elections and have agreed to no longer send 16-year-old application information but will send those who are 17 and older,” Haupt said. “To be clear, no 16-year-olds were registered to vote. In fact, the election authorities throughout the state have long had a system in place preventing them from registering anyone under age to vote.” 

State Rep. Tim Butler said the program needs to be suspended until there’s a full review, even by an outside independent auditor. 

“The sheriff’s race in Macon County from 14 months ago, from the fall of 2018, was decided by a single vote,” Butler said. “Out of 40,000 votes cast, it was decided by a single vote, which means one person’s vote matters. And if we are registering people to vote in these counties that aren’t eligible to vote, we are doing it wrong and it could determine the outcome of an election.” 

Butler said this is a self-inflicted wound to Illinois’ electoral systems. 

“This needs to be taken as seriously as the State Board of Elections and elections authorities have taken the Russian interference and the outside influences that are trying to go on in our elections,” he said. 

The entire Senate Republican caucus also said AVR needs to be suspended. 

“To date, we now know that out of 137,000 AVR applications since 2018, four percent have been registered in error,” a letter from the Senate GOP to Secretary of State Jesse White said. “This is unacceptable. We are asking that you suspend this program until all ‘glitches’ known and unknown are fixed.” 

“Furthermore, there clearly needs to be an independent investigation, as some members of the Illinois State Board of Elections have suggested,” the letter continued. “We need to know how these glitches occurred, why they were unreported, and what can be done to ensure this never happens again.” 

State Rep. Kelly Burke, D-Evergreen Park, said she’s not ready to call for the program to be suspended. 

“I’d like to get a little more information from the Secretary of State’s office about what happened, how it happened, and how easy it is to turn on and off some of these functions,” Burke said. “Because obviously getting more people who are eligible to vote to participate in elections is the goal of what this is.” 

“Automatic Voter Registration is working well,” Haupt said in response to the Senate GOP letter. “[T]hrough the program, more than 600,000 people have been successfully registered to vote since the launch of the program in July 2018.” 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker also declined to suspend the program being operated by executive agencies under his control. 

A hearing on the issue Thursday was canceled. That’s been rescheduled for next week.