Illinois Election Official Admits ‘Error’ Allowed Non-Citizens To Vote in 2018

The Illinois State Board of Elections confirmed Tuesday that not only were 574 non-U.S. citizens accidentally registered to vote in 2018, but 16 of those individuals actually voted.

Henry Haupt, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Jess White, said in a statement that the error was a programming malfunction, according to WCIA, but now Illinois House representatives are calling for White to be held accountable.

Illinois state law allows immigrants who aren’t citizens to receive a driver’s license or state identification, but both state and federal law deny non-citizens the right to vote in American elections.

Non-citizens who vote can face serious consequences, including immediate deportation.

“If that person voted, that’s a huge problem when it comes to the federal government,” Republican Illinois Rep. Tim Butler of Springfield said earlier this week.

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“That’s a deportable offense for this person. And if that’s the case, that’s something that’s on the Secretary of State’s office for allowing that offense to happen.”

Haupt explained the error was due to a programming malfunction in the Automatic Voter Registration process, which was initially rolled out in July 2018, according to WTTW.

The process automatically registers eligible citizens to vote when they apply for or renew a license or ID, unless they opt out.

“For whatever reason that technological programming error did not properly remove the individuals,” Haupt told WCIA. “The individuals who are applying for driver’s license were inadvertently pooled into the automatic voter registration.”

“We discovered an error, and we fixed it,” Haupt continued. “And then we notified the State Board of Elections and the local election authorities and the individuals that were impacted.”

Once those individuals were erroneously registered to vote, they were likely sent many pamphlets and brochures in the mail from voting officials and political campaigns.

The State Board of Elections confirmed on Tuesday that 16 of the 574 non-citizens voted in 2018, according to WGN-TV, with two individuals voting in multiple elections.

There is currently no evidence that the error had any major affect on the outcome of the elections. Officials were working Tuesday to determine where the voters were located.

Here’s the breakdown by county:
Champaign – 2 votes
Christian – 2
Cook – 5
Dupage – 1
Lee – 1
Macon – 1 person voted in two elections
Peoria – 1

Chicago – 3, one person voted in multiple elections

19 total ballots, 2 people voted in multiple elections

— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) January 21, 2020

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On Dec. 18, 2019, Butler and four other House representatives called for White, the State Board of Elections and others involved to testify in an investigative hearing.

“This is an absurd lack of compliance with state law, surfacing less than three weeks from the opening of early voting for our state’s 2020 general primary election,” the letter sent to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago read.

“Given this, we are requesting an immediate hearing of the House Executive Committee to investigate this situation and to hear testimony directly from Secretary of State Jesse White, officials of the State Board of Elections, representatives from our local election authorities, and others concerned with this situation.”

Butler maintains that even if White’s office didn’t know about the programming error, White needs to be held responsible.

“We have to have complete confidence that our offices are doing the right thing,” he told WCIA, “and that goes for the Secretary of State. He may or may not have known about this. I have no idea.

“But he needs to be held responsible for it. It’s his operation that allowed this to happen.”

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