Democrats, GOP Spar Over Same-Day Voter Registration

A lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday aims to strike down a state law allowing same-day voter registration at polling places in Illinois’ largest counties.

The Liberty Justice Center, the legal arm of the Illinois Policy Institute, argues the law discriminates against people in the state’s less-populated counties and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Under the law, Election Day voter registration is allowed at polling places only in counties with more than 100,000 people, while residents in counties that don’t meet the population threshold must register at county clerks’ offices. Only 20 of the state’s 102 counties have populations of 100,000 or more.

Jacob Huebert, the senior attorney with the Liberty Justice Center, said there is no judicial precedent because no other state has a law with this provision on the books, but he noted the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that geographical discrimination against voters is unconstitutional.

Huebert believes the law favors voters in more populated counties where Democratic candidates tend to do better on Election Day, and discriminates against voters in low-population counties where Republican candidates tend to do better at the polls — especially in presidential election years when voter turnout is highest.

“Election Day voter registration boosts voter turnout, but in particular at the precinct level because it’s so easy,” Huebert said. He added it becomes much more difficult for people in smaller counties because the county courthouse is the only location where someone can both register to vote and cast their ballot on Election Day.

If the entire same-day voter registration statute is enjoined for November election, it could hurt Democratic state lawmakers in key contested races, but Kent Redfield, a political science professor emeritus at University of Illinois at Springfield, said that given the size of Cook County and the fact there are more Democrats than Republicans in Illinois, the impact on the Democratic Party probably would be marginal.

“It could make a difference, but that depends on the partisan balance in a county and whether there are people trying to drive registration and turnout for a specific party,” Redfield said.

Redfield noted same-day voter registration likely was a deciding factor two years ago when state Rep. Katherine Cloonen, D-Kankakee, narrowly defeated Republican Glenn Nixon by fewer than 200 votes.

Following a pilot program, the same-day voter registration law was passed by the General Assembly with only Democratic votes shortly after the 2014 election, and then was signed by former Gov. Pat Quinn before he left office.

Huebert said the legislation didn’t go through the normal committee process and that Democratic lawmakers didn’t gather enough information, particularly from county clerks in smaller, rural counties.

The argument for the population threshold is that smaller counties don’t have the resources and it’s expensive to implement same-day voter registration, though Huebert said it’s expensive in general but that doesn’t mean you can treat voters differently.

However, some Democratic lawmakers believe the real goal of lawsuit is to end same-day voter registration in Cook County rather than extend it to the other 82 counties that don’t meet the population provision under the statute.

In a Twitter feud, state Rep. Christian Mitchell, D-Chicago, accused the Illinois Policy Institute of “voter suppression” and said the conservative think tank is trying to do Gov. Bruce Rauner’s “dirty work of voter suppression.”

The complete lawsuit can be found here.

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