Pledges to investigate threats to voter privacy and fair elections
CHICAGO – At a press conference Monday morning, state senator and Democratic candidate for attorney general Kwame Raoul urged Governor Bruce Rauner to sign legislation removing Illinois from the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. Tuesday, July 17, is the governor’s deadline to take action. Raoul gave the following statement:
Amid growing concern over the integrity of our election process, Crosscheck is simply too great a risk for Illinois. With President Trump unwilling to safeguard voter privacy and members of his inner circle under investigation, we are duty-bound to protect our own voters and their data. The right to vote freely and privately is the bedrock of our democracy, and I call on Governor Rauner to sign this bill and get us out of Crosscheck.
Especially in light of new indictments indicating Illinois voters’ privacy was compromised by foreign adversaries, as attorney general, I pledge to aggressively investigate all threats to our state’s election system. The confidence our voters have in the fairness of our elections is one of the most valuable resources democracy has – and clearly one of the most vulnerable. I will not stand idly by while our elections fall under attack again.
The Illinois State Board of Elections has stated that it is “very likely” the victim of a hack described in Friday’s indictments of 12 Russian officers suspected of meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. The indictments allege that the Russians stole names, addresses and drivers’ license numbers of affected voters. More than 500,000 Illinois voters’ data may have been exposed.
Tuesday is the governor’s last day to take action on Senate Bill 2273, which Raoul sponsored along with State Representative Ann Williams. If it becomes law, the measure will end Illinois’ participation in the multistate Crosscheck voter registration database, which suspended its operations last month while under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security due to its vulnerability to breaches. The system has also been shown to enable vote suppression by returning false positives for duplicate registrations. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who oversees Crosscheck, over the release of nearly 1,000 Kansan voters’ personal information, transmitted over unencrypted email. Kobach is a former co-chair of President Trump’s panel on voter fraud. Last fall, the State Board of Elections voted along party lines to stay in the Crosscheck system, despite security concerns.
Under SB 2273, Illinois would remain part of the Electronic Registration Information System (ERIC) database, which is used by 20 states and offers an efficient means of maintaining voter rolls with better procedural safeguards against disenfranchisement and without Crosscheck’s vulnerabilities.
The press conference with Rep. Williams, state Sen. Bill Cunningham (Chair of Senate Telecommunications and Information Technology Committee), Renato Marroti, ACLU Illinois and Indivisible Illinois was streamed on Facebook Live, and a recording can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/ACLUo
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Read Kwame’s response to the Mueller indictments of Russian officers for election meddling.