Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Illinois admits more voter registration errors — this time affecting former inmates

Unshackled hands
JakeOlimb/GettyImages

Illinois election officials said Monday that hundreds of former inmates had their voter registrations mistakenly canceled and that the state was working to restore their status quickly.

The canceled registrations, which affected 774 felons who had re-registered to vote following their release, was at least the fourth mishap related to voter registrations revealed by the Illinois Board of Elections in the past two weeks alone.

The latest episode involved a "data-matching error" in the information shared between the state corrections department and the elections board.


"Matching based on information forwarded to the State Board of Elections incorrectly categorized the individuals as currently incarcerated when in fact they had completed their sentences and been discharged," the elections board said in a statement.

In Illinois, a person's registration is suspended while incarcerated but they are allowed to re-register immediately following release.

The board notified election authorities so the registrations could be reinstated in time for early voting beginning Thursday, the statement said.

The canceled registrations continue a string of bad headlines for Illinois election officials, although this instance appears to be unrelated to three other issues revealed since late January, all attributed to the state's automatic voter registration program.

That system, which automatically registers a person to vote when they apply for or renew a driver's license unless they specifically opt out, led to voter cards being issued to more than 500 noncitizens as well as citizens who opted out but were sent cards anyway.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The elections board also said last week that roughly 4,700 16-year-olds who had applied for licenses appeared on a list of voter registration applications forwarded by the secretary of state's office through the AVP program.

While 17-year-olds are allowed to register and vote in primary elections in Illinois if they turn 18 by the time of the general election, there's no such provision for 16-year-olds.

The registration requests for the underage teens were caught and removed before they were processed and voter cards were mailed out, officials said, but that hasn't stopped Republican leaders from calling for an investigation into the problems and asking the secretary of state's office to suspend the program.

All this comes after Russian actors successfully hacked into the state's voter registration database, capturing the personal information of thousands of voters.

Read More

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand Placing Ballot in Box With American Flag
Getty Images, monkeybusinessimages

We Can Fix This: Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How

As American politics polarizes ever further, voters across the political spectrum agree that our current system is not delivering for the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans feel most elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Eighty-eight percent of them say our political system is broken.

Whether it’s the quality and safety of their kids’ schools, housing affordability and rising homelessness, scarce and pricey healthcare, or any number of other issues that touch Americans’ everyday lives, the lived experience of polarization comes from such problems—and elected officials’ failure to address them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less