A spokesman for secretary of state Jesse White said the non-citizens are not illegal aliens, rather they are here legally and the new “Automatic Voter Registration” law was to blame.
This is precisely why the Democrats are pushing for “motor voter” laws and other automatic registration laws.
Out of the 574 non-citizens who were registered to vote in Illinois, 16 reportedly cast ballots in the 2018 election. (that number is probably much higher)
WGN reported:
Illinois lawmakers are raising questions about the integrity of state elections after the secretary of state admitted hundreds of non-citizens were registered as voters, and could have cast ballots illegally in the 2018 election.
In a letter, Secretary of State Jesse White’s office said a “programming error” in a signature pad at driver services facilities led to hundreds of non-U.S. citizens accidentally being registered as voters.
The Secretary of State’s Office said the problem has been fixed Tuesday, but state lawmakers and election authorities are just beginning to raise concerns.
“We view it as a significant problem,” said Matt Dietrich of the Illinois State Board Of Elections.
In 2017, then-governor Bruce Rauner signed the “Automatic Voter Registration” bill into law. It requires eligible Illinois citizens to be automatically registered to vote when they apply for or renew a driver’s license or ID, unless they choose to opt out.
“For whatever reason that technological programming error did not properly remove the individuals,” the letter said. “The individuals who are applying for driver’s license were inadvertently pooled into the automatic voter registration.”
Republican state representative Tim Butler (Springfield) is demanding a House investigation into the secretary of state’s office.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence in the Secretary of State’s Office right now,” said Tim Butler.
“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,” Butler added.
The Illinois GOP chairman released a statement calling for people to be fired:
“It simply is inexcusable that non-citizens voted in Illinois and potentially affected the outcome of elections across the state. Those in the Secretary of State’s Office who allowed this to happen should be terminated from their employment with the State.”
