The Illinois Secretary of State's Office has agreed to make voter registration easier for non-English speakers, as a result of a lawsuit brought by Chicago-based political reform groups.
On June 29, a settlement between Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, the Illinois Board of Elections and six reform organizations, was approved by Judge Charles Norgle, of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The groups behind the suit included: Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Chicago; Change Illinois; Common Cause Illinois; Chicago Votes Education Fund; Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; and Illinois Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.
In February 2020, the groups filed for an injunction against White and the Board of Elections, demanding White's office implement measures required by the 2017 Automatic Voter Registration Law and the National Voter Registration Act. The Automatic Voter Registration Law was intended to correct disparities in voting by African American, Latino and Asian citizens, as well as by young putative voters, according to the complaint. One of the provisions of the law, enabled drivers license facilities to register voters when they receive, renew or update their licenses.
"Unfortunately, the promise of voter modernization and inclusivity has not only gone unfulfilled, it now appears that even basic voter registration services are mishandled in
disregard of repeated calls for transparency and accountability by non-partisan organizations in the state," the groups claimed.
The groups added, "Defendants’ failure to implement voter registration services" has "caused a belief among Illinois citizens that the very people tasked with protecting their fundamental right to vote are missing opportunity after opportunity to correctly implement the law."
The groups said they tried for two years to work with the state to satisfy the registration law, but "Defendants (remained) steadfast in their refusal to correct their failures — while Illinois citizens’ fundamental right of access to the ballot is trampled upon."
In the settlement, the Secretary of State (SOS) agreed to fulfill 24 obligations under the law, several of which require voter registration information be available, in Cook County, in the languages of Hindu, Urdu, Chinese and Spanish. In Lake and Kane counties, the information is to be in Spanish.
The National Voter Registration Act requires communities to have registration information in certain languages other than English, based on numbers of voting age citizens speaking such languages in the communities and on numbers those non-English speakers who are illiterate. In Illinois, this requirement comes into play in Cook, Lake and Kane counties. No other counties in the state reach the required numbers.
The SOS also agreed to keep in place its system, which prevents information about license applicants, who are not U.S. citizens or are under voting age, from being passed on to the State Board of Elections.
In addition, the SOS will design and distribute to its facilities, a handout that provides voter information, including notice that information about anyone declining to register, will be confidential.
The Secretary of State is to furnish quarterly progress reports to plaintiffs.
Both sides bore their own costs for handling the litigation.
The reform groups were represented by attorneys from the firm of Skadden, Arps. Slate, Meagher & Flom, of Chicago, and the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In-house counsel for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, of Washington, D.C., also took part in the legal action.
White and the Board of Elections were defended by the Illinois Attorney General's Office.