Entering the Tazewell County Clerk’s office in the Mckenzie building in downtown Pekin, visitors see a wall rack of state Board of Elections brochures with titles like “Voting by Mail” and “Preventing Voter Fraud,” and a friendly staff working a year before the next federal election.
In Peoria, the Peoria County Election Commission along Brandywine Drive likewise is abuzz with activity; phones are ringing and faces are smiling and bright.
But there’s a shadow, increasingly dark, from Illinois to Washington, D.C.
Days before the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about removing one of the last pieces of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) – 60 years after it passed – local election authorities and voting-rights advocates are talking about the right to vote. Several issues are nagging at that right:
* Gutting the VRA and guardrails on redistricting
* Mandating new voter IDs
* Jeopardizing mail-in ballots
* Questioning voter machines
* Federal demands for voter data, including personal information
PROTECTING THOSE HISTORICALLY PREVENTED FROM VOTING
The Supreme Court in mid-October heard arguments in Robinson v. Callais and Louisiana v. Callais, combined to challenge a court decision outlawing a new Louisiana district because it diluted minority voting power. The Court could eliminate the VRA’s Section 2, which prohibits race-based redistricting (gerrymandering) when it reduces minority power. Plaintiffs describing themselves as “non-African American voters” say creating a Black-majority district is itself racial gerrymandering.
Chris Kaergard, a longtime government reporter and now president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria, commented, “As to the Louisiana v. Callais case, I'd point to the actual title of the Voting Rights Act: ‘An Act to Enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution’ [which states voting rights “shall not be denied or abridged … on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”].
“The people who wrote the law -- including central Illinois' own Everett Dirksen – were clear on what they wanted to accomplish, and Congress has been clear that it believes in those provisions by extending the bill repeatedly on bipartisan votes. They knew 60 years ago there were voices missing from the table that were needed to ensure our political discourse involved everyone. In fact, when the VRA was passed, there was not a single Black member serving in the U.S. Senate – the first Black senator to be popularly elected didn't take his seat until 1967, and only a handful of African-Americans serving in the House. That didn't look at all like America. In truth, the Congress still doesn't. But it looks a lot closer to the way our country looks now than it did a few decades ago. You've got to think that improved access to the polls and drawing boundaries that keep communities of interest together has played some role in that – particularly in states and regions that had a legacy of shutting access to certain groups.”
Mark Morial, President of the Urban League, said, “American democracy is under siege, a national pattern of voter suppression, restricting access to the ballot through voting-roll purges, reduced polling locations, gerrymandering and ID laws.”
Indeed, in 2013 Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion in Shelby v. Holder, which killed the VRA requirement for federal preclearance in voting changes by states that used to deny people, mostly African Americans, the right to vote, and assured that Sec. 2 would still protect voting rights.
If the 2025 Court kills Sec. 2, Republicans could redraw up to 19 Congressional seats to favor the GOP and crush minority voters’ influence in the House, rendering Blacks a “right” without impact. As Justice Thurgood Marshall said in 1980, such a right “provides the politically powerless with nothing more than the right to cast meaningless ballots.”
It’s possible the Court could issue its decision before next November’s “off-year” election, and in campaign years without a presidential race, the party in power usually loses congressional seats.
OTHER REDISTRICTING MISCHIEF
Trump weeks ago asked Texas to redistrict Democrat-leaning districts to create GOP-friendly districts to gain an edge in the 2026 House election, and Texas complied. Districts are usually adjusted after the decade’s Census, so it’s unprecedented as far as timing as well as purpose.
Other Republican-majority states are considering it. Missouri has redistricted a Democratic-leaning district in Kansas City and is being challenged in court, and conservative lawmakers in Florida, Indiana and Louisiana may follow suit. However, Democratic-majority states are trying to counter the move, from California to Utah. Illinois may, too, and Politico reports that Gov. Pritzker has not ruled out a counter-move reportedly targeting Right-wing stalwart Mary Miller in the 15th District.
“None of us want to do it,” he said. “But if we’re forced to, it’s something we’ll consider.”
‘SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS’
A new attempt to require more forms of identification, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, passed the House in April 220–208. If approved in the Senate, it would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering to vote.
“It's hard to conceive a point of the SAVE Act that doesn't center on suppressing the vote,” Kaergard says. “Surely it's not to prevent non-citizens from voting. That's already against federal law. Laws in all 50 states also already require that someone registering to vote has to affirm or verify their citizenship. The SAVE Act is certainly not designed to make it easier for anyone who has ever changed their name because of marriage, divorce, remarriage, adoption or any other common reason. Anyone in that position who's gotten their REAL-ID knows the burden of locating all those original documents. Try having to do that any time you register or re-register.
“Create extra hoops, and fewer people will want to take the time to jump through them -- and their voices as citizens will be silenced in an arena they're constitutionally guaranteed,” Kaergard continues. “The right to vote is sacrosanct. For more than 160 years, the country has slowly but systematically expanded voting rights. This isn't the time to take a step backward.”
MAIL-IN BALLOTS RETURNED TO SENDER?
Also recently heard at the Supreme Court was Bost v. Illinois Board of Elections, which argues that accepting ballots postmarked Election Day 14 days after is unconstitutional. Brought by Republican Congressman Mike Bost from southern Illinois, the lawsuit was dismissed by lower courts that ruled that the claim failed to show an injury from the “grace period” practice.
Mail-in ballots have dramatically grown since 2016, says the always cheery Tazewell County Clerk John C. Ackerman, “It hasn’t been a problem. Each state is a bit different, but it’s a long-standing practice in Illinois.
Kaergard adds, “Illinois has operated elections effectively with mail-in ballots for years, and we've seen races change course because of them. If you're a snowbird, or headed on a trip, or just don't want to risk the roads being clear during a late February city primary election, your vote should still count. We also know from news this past year that our local election authorities are diligent about ensuring a mail-in voter can't vote on Election Day without being caught and facing consequences. Claiming somehow that there is a problem with the existing mail-in ballot rules defies all the evidence to the contrary.”
DOUBTING VOTING MACHINES WITHOUT CAUSE
“The exact same can be said about voting machines,” Kaergard says. “Local election authorities here keep paper records of the votes as well. They're double checked as a matter of law as part of the final certification process. It's hard to argue there's election-machine fraud when there are records to check that can prove the exact opposite point: We have well-run, transparent, secure elections and responsible officials who conduct them.”
In Peoria, election commission Executive Director Elizabeth Gannon says Peoria’s system scans voters’ ballots and saves paper copies – “and is not connected to the internet.”
FEDS’ WANT PRIVATE DETAILS IN DATA GRAB
Illinois is among 21 states that have received threatening requests to turn over sensitive voter data to the U.S. Dept. of Justice. It would be “the largest set of national voter-roll data it has ever collected,” the New York Times reported, “to try to prove long-running, unsubstantiated claims that droves of undocumented immigrants have voted.”
Like most states, Illinois declined because the information includes personal details such as drivers license data and Social Security numbers, and the DOJ is suing several “blue” states to better identify voters. Other states considering released the personal information include Florida, Indiana and South Carolia.
Ackerman shrugs and says, “There may be a little validity to it in that there might be overlapping or repetitive names, but it could be too intrusive, and it’s not necessary. Local authorities run the show, and we’re always cleaning voter rolls, whether [through] the reminder cards election years or throughout the off-years.”
Gannon agrees: “Illinois is a ‘bottom-up” system handled better at the local level.”
However, Trump asserted executive power.
“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” he posted on Truth Social. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.”
Benjamin Ginsberg, former general counsel for the Republican National Committee disagreed, saying, “He doesn’t have the constitutional power to take over and run elections. What he can do is continue to try to delegitimize the election system so he can make up his own results.”
David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said, “There is zero federal law that entitles the Department of Justice to that sensitive data.”
Indeed, constitutional scholars say states aren’t just agents of the federal government when it comes to holding elections. The Elections Clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section 4, Clause 1), gives the feds control over the times, places and manner of holding elections, subject only to congressional, not presidential, action.
WHY IS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SO CONCERNED?
Ackerman says there’s a lot of misinformation, but he invites concerned citizens to “come in with questions and talk to us, and we’ll show them what we do.”
Historian Heather Cox Richardson said Trump’s scheme to redistrict in the GOP’s favor is revealing, commenting, “The President of the United States is openly admitting that his party cannot win a free and fair election.”
Others say Trump wants to discredit elections, period. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat, said Trump is using “the DOJ to go after his political opponents and undermine our elections,” and Pritzker echoed that, commenting that Trump would “just claim that there’s some problem – and then he’s got troops on the ground that can take control.”
Asked about how election authorities feel when facing such challenges, Gannon doesn’t roll her eyes, instead taking a deep breath and smiling.
“We work hard at ensuring democracy happens,” she says. “Especially in these times.”
