August 12, 2016
To the Honorable
Members of
The Illinois Senate,
99th General Assembly:
Our
democracy depends upon free and fair elections and is strengthened by increased
voter participation. I strongly support efforts to simplify the voter
registration process and remove barriers to voting, while still protecting the
integrity of our election system.
Earlier
this year, I signed Senate Bill 1529, a bipartisan bill to modernize our
election system and expand voting opportunities. The bill allows the use of
digital voter signatures; expands online voter registration; enables the State
to fund its participation in national Electronic Registration Information
Center; extends the ability of military voters and others to vote by mail
through Election Day; and enhances criminal penalties for fraudulent voting. I
look forward to continuing to work with the General Assembly to modernize our
election system and promote voter participation.
Senate
Bill 250 would transition Illinois to an automatic voter registration system –
one of the first states in the nation. I thank the sponsors and proponents for
their commitment to increasing voter participation. Today I return the bill, however,
to provide the sponsors and proponents with the opportunity to make some
important corrections to protect the integrity of our election system and to
comply with federal law. We must also ensure that the State Board of Elections
is provided with adequate time and resources to implement the bill’s
provisions.
Background
Current
law allows citizens to complete a voter registration application at the
Secretary of State’s Driver Services Department. The Secretary of State
transmits the application to the appropriate local election authority to be
processed. This process is subject to both the Illinois Election Code and
federal law, including the National Voter Registration Act.
Public
Act 98-1171, enacted last year, expanded this system to allow individuals to register
to vote whenever they conduct business or interact with the Department of Human
Services, Department of Healthcare and Family Services, Department of
Employment Security, and Department on Aging. An agency employee notifies the
individual whether he or she is registered to vote and offers the individual an
opportunity to register or to update his or her registered address. The agency
transmits the registration or updated information to the State Board of
Elections, which in turn transmits the information to the local election
authority. The public act requires the State Board to complete its
implementation by July 1, 2016, but that work has not yet been completed.
Senate
Bill 250 would change this system by requiring automatic registration. The bill
would require each agency to automatically process a voter registration for
each individual about whom it has information, whether or not the individual
intends to register. The individual is later informed about the automatic
registration and given an opportunity to opt-out by contacting the appropriate
election authority.
The
proponents of the bill intend to remove barriers to voting, which I applaud.
But in the haste of amending and passing the bill on the last day of the spring
legislative session, they concede that the bill does not plainly and clearly
describe the process they envision. For the past several weeks, my
Administration has been working closely with the proponents and lawyers for all
four legislative caucuses to address the concerns described below. I remain
hopeful that these concerns can be addressed and we can together enact a bill
that achieves our shared goals.
Voter
Integrity and Compliance with Federal Law
We
must ensure the integrity of our election system and that it complies with
federal law. The National Voter Registration Act imposes certain conditions on
voter registrations, including that the applicant must be informed of the voter
eligibility requirements, must attest that he or she meets qualifications to
vote, and must sign the voter registration application. Federal law provides
the individual with an opportunity to decline to register to vote or to
transfer his or her information for voter registration purposes without
adversely affecting other government services.
Proponents
contend that individuals will be informed of the qualifications to vote; that
the agencies will check their own records to confirm an individual is a citizen
and otherwise eligible to vote before processing the registration; and that the
agencies will indicate to the State Board of Elections which identification
documents were checked. But that is not how the bill is drafted.
Senate
Bill 250 does not require an applicant to attest to meeting the qualifications
to vote or to sign the application, as required by federal law. The bill
directs the Secretary of State’s Drivers Services Department to automatically
register the individual “regardless of whether or not the individual attested
to his or her eligibility to register to vote.” The bill relies on the State
Board of Elections to screen out individuals who are not eligible to vote, even
though the State Board may not have access to that information. In fact, some
of the agencies in possession of citizenship-related information are prohibited
by federal law from sharing that information with the State Board.
The
consequences could be injurious to our election system. We know that
non-citizens have registered to vote in Illinois after obtaining a driver’s
license and voted in recent elections. Among other documented cases, a citizen
of Kenya registered to vote and voted in the 2004 election, and citizens of
Peru and the Philippines registered to vote and voted in the 2006 election. Each
of these cases of voter fraud was caught by immigration officials, not the
State of Illinois.
The
bill should be conformed to the system that the proponents describe. Agencies
with access to citizenship information should use that information to verify a
person’s eligibility before processing the voter registration. That
responsibility should not – and legally cannot – fall to the State Board of
Elections, as the bill currently provides.
Reliability
of State Agency Information
Senate
Bill 250 intends for agencies to automatically update voter information based
on the agency’s records. This assumes that agency records are accurate,
consistent, and reliable.
While
we are working to update and consolidate State information systems through the
new Department of Innovation and Technology, the State does not have a single dataset
for each individual that can be reliably used to verify current information. In
fact, the agencies charged with updating voter records could have different
name or address information about the same individual, due to no fault of the
individual. Residency for unemployment benefits or human services may be
different than residency for election purposes. An agency should not
automatically change an address without providing the individual with an
opportunity to verify that the address is accurate for the purposes of voter
registration.
Senate
Bill 250 tacitly acknowledges this problem. The bill provides that if a voter’s
registered address is mistakenly changed, and the voter appears at the voter
precinct for his prior registered address, the voter should have the
opportunity to vote at that prior address with a regular (as opposed to
provisional) ballot. The bill also provides that the voter should not be
disqualified from voting “due to an error relating to an update of
registration.” The law should avoid errors in the first place.
Implementation
Timeline and Resources
The
State Board of Elections has said that the timeline for implementation is
aggressive and, to date, no funding has been provided to carry out the work
needed. Despite diligent efforts, the State Board is already past-due in
implementing the changes required by Public Act 98-1171, which underlie the
changes that would be required by Senate Bill 250. We should provide the State
Board with the time and resources needed to properly complete the
implementation.
Recommended
Changes
Senate
Bill 250 seeks a worthy but ambitious goal. After the State Board of Elections,
Secretary of State, and others raised concerns about how it would be
implemented, the sponsors and proponents introduced a series of amendments at
the end of May. There remain some unaddressed problems, but for which there are
workable solutions. Specifically:
·
The
Secretary of State should only transit voter registrations for which it has
been able to verify citizenship and should indicate which identification
documents were checked. As part of REAL ID compliance, this information will be
available to the Secretary of State for any person seeking to obtain a REAL
ID-compliant license. Proponents indicated that the bill intends for this
screening; the bill should make this a clear requirement.
·
Other
State agencies, other than the Secretary of State, should check voter
registrations against their available citizenship records when possible before
submitting those registrations to the State Board of Elections. Each of the
four State agencies identified in the bill has access to that information. If
the agency does not have citizenship-related information for a particular
person, the applicant must attest by signature to meeting the qualifications to
vote.
·
The
Secretary of State and each other State agency should notify a potential
applicant whether or not he or she is currently registered to vote, based on
information provided from a State master voter file, and if so at what address.
If the person is already registered to vote at another address, the agency
should confirm that the person desires to update his or her address, before
automatically processing an errant address change. If the person is not
registered to vote, and requests not to be, the State agency should honor that
request.
·
The
bill should define “reliable State government source”, which is a source of
information that may be used for completing a voter registration. The bill
should set out a process for how other information sources are added to the
list of reliable sources, as currently contemplated by the bill.
·
The
bill should set out a realistic implementation deadline, and we should provide
the State Board of Elections and other implementing agencies with adequate
resources. We must also recognize that county clerks and other local election
authorities will incur costs in implementing this bill. The bill allows e-mail
notices to be used for certain purposes; we should examine expanding e-mail use
to reduce costs for the State and local election authorities.
Proponents
have expressed willingness to make some of these changes, while others remain
in discussion. I thank the proponents, sponsors, and legislative staff for
continuing to work with my Administration to address these concerns. I hope we
can complete this work and pass a bipartisan election bill in the near future.
Until
then, I cannot approve Senate Bill 250 in its current form. Therefore, pursuant
to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby
return Senate Bill 250 entitled “AN ACT concerning elections”, with the
foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.
Sincerely,
Bruce Rauner
GOVERNOR