SPRINGFIELD – Despite the fact Illinois Democrats hold super majority control of both the Illinois Senate and House as well as the Governor's Mansion, they're pushing to solidify their control in the future by employing the U.S. Post Office as their ballot handler.
Indeed, in 2018, California – using a vote-by-mail system of harvesting votes – lost a vast majority of their Republican Congress members.
Two bills are to be discussed this week in Illinois House committees that would send every voter a ballot by mail – whether they asked for it or not. That ballot will have no oversight, but be filled out, signed and returned by mail – or by a "friend," stranger or anyone that offered to return the ballot.
The Illinois Conservation Union just doesn't trust the powers-that-be to conduct an election that way.
After all, they say, in April of 2017 the public policy watchdog Judicial Watch found that Illinois and ten other states listed more registered voters than adults in numerous Illinois counties.
"Odds are some vote-by-mail ballots will be sent to residents where the registered voter no longer lives," the ICU said in a statement. "Illinois counties with more voters than adults are: Alexander, Bureau, Cass, Clark, Crawford, DuPage, Franklin, Grundy, Hardin, Henderson, Jefferson, Jersey, Massac, McHenry, Mercer, Monroe, Pulaski, Rock Island, Sangamon, Scott, Union, Wabash, Washington, and White."
The group urged opposition to the measures, and pointed out a list of objections to the idea of vote-by-mail:
- Chain of Custody for ballots—who has possession of the ballots during the entire process, (a private firm) can ballots be excluded from being processed, can ballots be harvested or bought?
- Lack of Security—are the ballots secured so that no tampering can result?
- Complete Privatization of the Electoral Process—Centralized voting of all absentee ballots, creation of algorithms to determine correct signature match
- No Audit of the Vote—Absentee (or Vote-by-mail) ballots are not subject to post-election audits
- Lack of transparency—the public no longer has access to witnessing the electoral process before, during and after the election
The ICU urged like-minded Illinoisans to contact their state reps right away, as the bills are to be heard in committee as soon as Wednesday.
The bills are HB 195 (Sponsor State Rep. LaShawn Ford (D-Chicago)) and HB 257 – (State Rep. LaShawn Ford)
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