{"id":83736,"date":"2019-12-16T15:39:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T21:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=83736"},"modified":"2020-01-21T13:22:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T19:22:44","slug":"auto-voter-registration-in-illinois-not-complying-with-law-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/auto-voter-registration-in-illinois-not-complying-with-law-experts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Auto-voter registration in Illinois not complying with law, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Megan Sauer<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Jay Young\u00a0 celebrated in 2017<\/a> when then-Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the automatic voter registration bill into law. Young, among several other nonprofit and voting rights advocates, thought Springfield\u2019s approval signaled the end of a long, painstaking process that had required months of political appeasing and redrafting legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like a big event and everyone in both houses seemed to get behind something this vital,\u201d said Young, 47, the executive director of Common Cause Illinois<\/a>, a pro-demoracy organization in Chicago. \u201cThe process, from that really high point to where we are today, has been really frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although lawmakers purposely built extensions into the bill to allow government agencies time to implement AVR by July 2018<\/a>, over a year has passed since its initial deadline. As far as Young and other members of the Just Democracy coalition are concerned, the inclusive \u201cspirit\u201d of the AVR bill has not been implemented \u201canywhere in the state\u201d of Illinois. <\/p>\n

The Secretary of State\u2019s office is one of the main agencies responsible for enlightening eligible citizens they have been automatically registered to vote, but may \u201copt-out\u201d with a single signature. Dave Druker, a spokesman for the Secretary of State<\/a>, said an AVR system is not only up and running in all of their locations, but also has already registered over 680,000 people since government agencies began offering REAL ID earlier this year. According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, about 43,260 of these voters were considered REAL ID compliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is applying for REAL ID, they bring in their birth certificates, passports and social security information, showing us they are U.S. citizens,\u201d Druker said. \u201cThere is another group, however, going for a standard driver\u2019s license. In some cases, they may have a green card or are possibly not U.S. citizens, so we require a second signature.\u201d<\/p>\n

The additional signature is the reason members of the Just Democracy Coalition are accusing the<\/p>\n

Secretary of State\u2019s office and other government agencies of breaking the law. Ami Gandhi, a voting rights attorney with the Chicago Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights<\/a>, argued this extra step puts non-citizens at risk and said the coalition is in the process of evaluating their own legal options to enforce the law\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur concern is that even under the opt-out system, additional signatures and steps are being asked of eligible voters beyond what the law requires,\u201d Gandhi said. \u201cIn a flawed implementation of the opt-in system, there are insufficient protections for individuals who are not looking to register.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gandhi also said minority communities are often overlooked in voting rights discussions and any additional barriers will further deter their participation in elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with various helpful systems in place to provide Illinois voters access to the polls, we still have over one million eligible voters, who aren\u2019t registered, that have given their identifying information over to the state already,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Young, Gandhi and the other members of their coalition sent a demand letter to the Secretary of State\u2019s office and Illinois\u2019 Board of Elections in 2018<\/a>, but without a direct response as to why AVR isn\u2019t implemented \u201cfully and on time,\u201d the advocates feel in the dark.<\/p>\n

When the bill was passed in 2017, Illinois was the ninth state<\/a> to sign AVR into law. Other states that have successfully implemented their own versions of the bill have preliminary data suggesting AVR not only improves voter participation, but also saves state governments money.<\/p>\n

Research from The Pew Center on the States,<\/a> for instance, revealed Oregon\u2019s state government spent over $8.8 million during the 2008 presidential election, while a later study conducted by Common Cause <\/a>found it only cost $530,217 to register voters between 2015-2017 after the state implemented AVR in 2016.<\/p>\n

Returning success rates from other states continue to frustrate the members of Just Democracy, including Georgia Logothetis, who also works for Common Cause<\/a>. She worries the vision of AVR has been lost in politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of advocates envisioned an extraordinary simple process where you\u2019re handed an iPad while you\u2019re waiting in line and bam, bam, bam \u2014 you\u2019ve renewed your ID and in the process, registered to vote,\u201d Logothetis, 37, said. \u201cThis kind of seamless, extremely modern and streamline technology \u2014 it just simply doesn\u2019t exist in Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordyn Squiers, a junior studying advertising and public relations at Loyola University Chicago, represents a portion of millennials and the U.S. population that have never voted in an election. While she didn\u2019t give a specific reason for abstaining from voting, she thinks the turnout will be much higher across all age groups for the 2020 election, especially if AVR is established in more states in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone today is all about easiness and convenience,\u201d Squiers, 21, said. “I think if AVR was a thing, more people would participate, especially in the next election. People are going to want to say they were involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the discrepancies between the nonprofit coalition and Illinois\u2019 government agencies, Young is wary AVR will be implemented in its intended capacity by the 2020 presidential election, neglecting over a million predicted eligible voters in across the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be in D.C. next week for an annual conference to talk about elections and voter registration,\u201d Young said. \u201cWhen it comes to AVR, I\u2019ll be sitting on the same panel, having the same conversations and voicing the same frustrations.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo at top: Jay Young has been one of the loudest voices in opposition of Illinois\u2019 implementation of AVR in its government agencies, asserting \u201cit would be very hard for anyone to take the position that the state is in full compliance with the terms of the statue.\u201d (Megan Sauer\/MEDILL)<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Sauer Medill Reports Jay Young\u00a0 celebrated in 2017 when then-Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the automatic voter registration bill into law. Young, among several other nonprofit and voting rights advocates, thought Springfield\u2019s approval signaled the end of a long, painstaking process that had required months of political appeasing and redrafting legislation. \u201cIt felt like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":83743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2019"],"yoast_head":"\nAuto-voter registration in Illinois not complying with law, experts say - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/auto-voter-registration-in-illinois-not-complying-with-law-experts-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Auto-voter registration in Illinois not complying with law, experts say - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Megan Sauer Medill Reports Jay Young\u00a0 celebrated in 2017 when then-Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the automatic voter registration bill into law. 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