Voting Rights
Let’s guarantee fair elections for all
Ask your state legislators in the Illinois General Assembly to support these provisions in an Omnibus Elections bill:
Ranked Choice Voting in Municipalities
Voting in Prison
Pre-Registration for 16-year-olds
Requiring an Email Address on Statements of Candidacy
Also ask your state senator to support HB1496 Implementing the Ban on Prison Gerrymandering.
Give it five minutes
Call or email your state legislator: “I am contacting you on the League of Women Voters of Illinois Lobby Day. The League supports the following provisions in an Omnibus Elections bill: Ranked Choice Voting in Municipalities, Voting in Prison, Pre-Registration for 16-year-olds, and Requiring an Email Address of Statements of Candidacy. I am your constituent, and I ask you to support these provisions in an Omnibus Elections bill.
The League also supports HB1496, to implement the ban on prison gerrymandering. I ask you to support this bill as well, to ensure fair representation for all citizens. Please help ensure that Illinois elections are free, fair, and accessible for all!”
Give it more time
Activate your networks
Encourage friends to contact their state legislators by using these graphics for social media, emails, and texts.
Suggested copy:
Democracy is not a spectator sport! Contact your state legislators and speak out about how we can make elections more free and fair in Illinois. Learn more: lwvil.org/lobbyday23 #LobbyDayLWVIL
Stop by your state legislator’s HOME Office
Drop in! Without an appointment, you might not be able to see your legislator, but you can drop off fact sheets (find them below) and maybe talk to a staffer.
What’s at stake: Learn about the election laws
Ranked Choice Voting in Municipalities
Permit a municipality to adopt an ordinance allowing a ranked vote-by-mail ballot for consolidated primary and consolidated general elections—upon submission of a written statement by the election authority attesting to their ability to administer ranked ballots.
Background: Currently about 3/5ths of the counties in Illinois have voting equipment that supports ranked choice voting. Over 10M of the 12.8M Illinoisans reside in counties with RCV capable equipment. RCV empowers voters to support their 1st-choice candidate rather than the most “electable” one, decreases divisive campaigning, boosts turnout, and reduces costs.
League Position: The League supports electoral methods that encourage voter participation and engagement; encourage those with minority opinions to participate, including under-represented communities; promote access to voting; promote sincere voting over strategic voting; implement alternatives to plurality voting; and are compatible with acceptable ballot-casting methods, including vote-by-mail.
Voting in Prison
Repeal provisions of the Election Code that prohibit a person that is serving a sentence of confinement in any penal institution from voting until his or her release from confinement.
Background: When people who are convicted of a crime are prevented from voting, this disproportionately affects Black and Brown individuals. Vera Institute of Justice has reported that Black people constituted 15% of state residents, but 49% of people in jail and 55% of people in prison. Studies have found that Black people are more likely to be stopped by the police, detained pretrial, charged with more serious crimes, and sentenced more harshly than White people—even when controlling for things like offense severity.
League Position: Every citizen should be protected in the right to vote. In November 2019, the U.S. League signed on to a report by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR), Vision for Democracy, which details the massive systemic reforms needed to protect and improve our democracy. These reforms include ending felony disenfranchisement.
League Action: In November 2019, the U.S. League signed on to a report by the Leadership Conference
Voter Pre-registration of 16-year-olds
Provides that a person who is otherwise qualified to vote may preregister to vote on or after that person's 16th birthday, with the registration held in abeyance by the State Board of Elections until that individual attains the required age to vote.
Background: Currently, 15 states and Washington, D.C., permit preregistration beginning at 16 years old. The League has consistently taken steps to make voter registration more accessible (e.g. by supporting Motor Voter bills) and to facilitate voter registration for young people. The goal is to boost youth voter turnout. According to research, pre-registered young voters in Florida turned out at a rate 4.7 percent higher than young voters who registered after turning 18 in 2008.
League Position: Voting is a fundamental citizen right that must be guaranteed.
Require an Email Address on Statements of Candidacy
The State would require those seeking office to submit an email address and phone number where they can be reached when they file their paperwork to run for any office
Background: Chicago elections board officials encouraged candidates to submit this information several years ago and most candidates did so this cycle, making it far, far easier for media, community groups, and others to contact candidates and find out what they aim to do if elected.
It’s not a requirement, however, at the state level. So, when literally thousands of Illinois candidates filed to run for school board and park district board and municipal office and fire protection districts at hundreds of local government offices recently, none of them had to leave information about where they could be reached.
That oversight makes it an unnecessary, herculean task for local reporters, members of League of Women Voters chapters and others to try to hunt down candidates to provide voters information about them with nothing more than a physical address.
League Position: The League believes that democratic government depends upon informed and active participation at all levels of government.
Support the fight against gerrymandering
HB1496 Implementing the Ban on Prison Gerrymandering
HB1496 amends the No Representation Without Population Act, enabling the Department of Corrections to know home addresses for all those incarcerated and to provide them to authorities for voting and census purposes. Ask your state senator to support HB1496.
Background: In 2021, the ILGA Banned Prison Gerrymandering, the practice of counting incarcerated people at their temporary prison location for representations purposes instead of as residents of their home address. Prison gerrymandering means that communities with prisons are over-represented, while the home communities of people who are incarcerated are under-represented. The Illinois Department of Corrections has indicated that it is too difficult for them to collect home addresses.
HB1496 addresses the challenges with implementing the No Representation Without Population Act. The law will better ensure that the last-known address of people who are incarcerated will be available to state officials to use for redistricting and representation purposes.
League position:
Redistricting plans must require effective representation of racial and ethnic minorities.