A Chicago federal judge has cleared two powerful labor unions to jump into a legal action to try to stop a conservative election watchdog group's lawsuit trying to force Illinois and its county clerks do more to ensure the state's lists of voters are up to date and accurate.
On July 18, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis granted the request from the AFL-CIO and the Illinois Federation of Teachers to intervene against the lawsuit brought by conservative activist group, Judicial Watch.
That ruling comes even as the judge considers a motion by Illinois state election authorities to dismiss the action altogether.
Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Watch filed suit in March in Chicago federal court, claiming Illinois state and county election authorities have flouted federal law by all but refusing to properly audit the state's roster of registered voters and then purge from those lists people who have died, moved away or otherwise have become ineligible to vote in Illinois.
Judicial Watch has been joined in the legal action by conservative political advocacy groups Illinois Family Action, of Tinley Park, and Breakthrough Ideas, of Wheaton. The lawsuit was also filed on behalf of named plaintiff Carol J. Davis, identified as a registered voter in DuPage County.
The lawsuit asserts that as many as 60% of the jurisdictions that administer elections - including its most populous counties, such as Cook, Lake and Kane counties, and the cities of Chicago and East St. Louis - have either removed an "absurdly small" number of ineligible voters from their rolls, or have refused to report data concerning their voting list maintenance altogether.
The lawsuit asserts this has resulted in numerous instances in which a jurisdiction's voter population outnumbers its actual population, as calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
And it has resulted in an instance in which 23 Illinois counties, with a combined 980,000 voters, removed only 100 ineligible voters from their rolls since 2020.
"There is no possible way these counties can be conducting a general program that makes a reasonable effort to cancel the registrations of voters who have become ineligible because of a change of residence while removing so few registrations (as required by federal law)," Judicial Watch states in its lawsuit.
The lawsuit asserts Illinois and its local election authorities are out of compliance with the federal National Voter Registration Act, which requires them to properly "clean" and maintain their voter rolls and report data concerning their voter registration eligibility audits and purges.
The lawsuit notes that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 declared such voter roll maintenance to be mandatory.
“Illinois’ voting rolls are a mess. Dirty voter rolls can mean dirty elections,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Illinois should take immediate steps to clean its rolls to both prevent fraud and increase voter confidence in the elections.”
The lawsuit seeks court orders declaring Illinois is in violation of the NVRA law and requiring the state to "develop and implement a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the registrations of ineligible registrants from the voter rills in Illinois."
They also seek an order requiring the Illinois State Board of Elections and other defendants to give Judicial Watch and the other plaintiffs access to records to determine if election authorities are complying with the law.
In response, the state of Illinois has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, asserting they are complying with the NVRA, despite an apparent dearth of public data backing that assertion.
The state claims it "cross-references the 'statewide voter registration databased against the United States Postal Services National Change of Address database" twice a year and then shares the results of those cross-checks with local election authorities.
The ISBE asserts this, combined with other steps, has actually resulted in the removal of hundreds of thousands of voters from the statewide voter registration list.
The state asserts the data "shows that Illinois is making more than a reasonable effort to remove ineligible voters."
The ISBE also argues the lawsuit should be tossed because Judicial Watch and its fellow organizational co-plaintiffs cannot establish their right to sue election authorities under the NVRA.
However, while the judge is considering the state's motion to dismiss, the AFL-CIO and Illinois Federation of Teachers secured the judge's permission to wade into the court fight in opposition to Judicial Watch.
In asking to intervene, the unions claimed the Judicial Watch lawsuit threatens their members' interests, by potentially exposing their union members to being improperly kicked off the voter registration lists.
The unions are strong political allies and financial supporters of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates in Illinois.
They assert "many of their members 'do not have a permanent address or spend long periods of time away from home,' which makes it more likely that the (ISBE) would remove them from voter rolls should they fail to timely respond to confirmation notices."
The unions assert if Judicial Watch is successful, they will need to spend more union funds to fend off attempts to purge inactive voters from the voter rolls.
Ellis agreed that the unions have a right to protect their interests in court and defeat the conservative moves to enforce a more strict interpretation of the NVRA's voter clean up requirements.
And the judge agreed that the state election authorities' defense might not be enough to ensure the unions' interests are represented in court.
The unions "assert an interest in preserving their resources and protecting the voting rights of their members: the State Board has no obligation to protect these specific resources or voting interests," Ellis wrote in her order.
She further agreed the ISBE "is more likely to enter into a settlement agreement" to end the lawsuit, rather than fight the lawsuit, as the unions want.
The unions, Ellis said, "have identified at least one conflict that would arise in the context of a negotiated settlement... that is enough."
Judicial Watch had opposed the unions' bid to intervene.
Judicial Watch did not reply to a request from The Record for comment on Ellis' decision.
Judicial Watch and its co-plaintiffs are represented in the action by attorneys Christine Svenson, of Chalmers Adams Backler & Kaufman, of Palatine; and Paul J. Orfanedes, Robert D. Popper, Eric W. Lee and T. Russell Nobile, of Judicial Watch.
The unions are represented by attorneys Sarah F. Weiss, of Jenner & Block, of Chicago; and Elisabeth C. Frost, Jyoti Jasrasaria and Julie Zuckerbrod, of the Elias Law Group, of Washington, D.C.