Illinois state elections board tells DOJ it follows federal law on
voting integrity
[July 30, 2026]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois State Board of Elections told the U.S.
Department of Justice this week it is complying with all federal laws
governing voter registration and the maintenance of voter rolls, and it
pushed back against threats by the Trump administration to prosecute
state and local authorities for allowing illegal election activity.
“The Board and Illinois election authorities take very seriously their
responsibility to maintain up-to-date and accurate voter registration
records while ensuring that no eligible voters are disenfranchised by
being mistakenly removed from the rolls,” Marni Malowitz, the state
board’s general counsel, said in a letter Monday to the U.S. Department
of Justice. “Illinois’s comprehensive list maintenance framework,
consistent with the (National Voter Registration Act), ensures free and
fair elections.”
Malowitz’s letter was a response to a letter the Justice Department sent
July 7 to top election administrators in all 50 states and Washington,
D.C., threatening them with criminal prosecution for allowing
noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls or to cast ballots.
That feds’ letter also demanded that state officials reply within five
days by explaining in detail what procedures they use to regularly scrub
their voter rolls of ineligible or inactive voters.
Seeking federal control
Since President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, his
administration has made numerous attempts to exert more federal control
over elections. Toward that end, Trump has frequently repeated disproven
claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, which he lost to
former President Joe Biden.
In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department
of Homeland Security to work with other federal agencies in compiling a
national list of confirmed U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.
He also has directed the Postal Service to pursue regulatory changes
that would prohibit the transmission of mail-in ballots to or from
anyone who is not on that list, although that effort has been stalled by
multiple legal challenges.
Trump is also pushing for federal legislation that would require voters
to show documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote
as well as photo identification before casting a ballot. However, the
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, has stalled in
the Senate, where it does not have enough votes for passage.
Meanwhile, the administration is also suing Illinois and dozens of other
states seeking access to their complete, unredacted statewide voter
registration databases, including sensitive personal information such as
dates of birth, Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
As of Monday, July 27, federal judges in 17 district courts and one
appellate court had ruled against the administration, finding DOJ does
not have statutory authority to demand such records. No court has yet
ruled in DOJ’s favor on the issue. A federal judge in Illinois, however,
has not yet ruled on the state board’s motion to dismiss the case.
State board’s response
Responding to DOJ’s July 7 letter threatening prosecution, Malowitz
began by noting that DOJ “does not identify any credible evidence of
voter fraud or other impropriety in an Illinois election. Nor does it
contain any allegation of a violation of federal law by an Illinois
election official.”
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The Illinois State Board of Elections office is pictured in
Springfield. (Capitol News Illinois file photo)
The letter goes on to argue that the U.S. Constitution “assigns primary
responsibility for federal elections to the States, subject only to
preemption by Congress.”
In Illinois, the letter states, responsibility for administering
elections lies with the State Board of Elections, an independent,
bipartisan agency whose members “are not subject to oversight by or
direction from public officials or political bodies.”
“Entrusting election supervision to an independent, bipartisan board
exemplifies Illinois’s commitment to ensuring public confidence in
elections,” the letter states. “The Board, through its bipartisan
actions, safeguards against voter fraud, voter suppression, voter
confusion, and public corruption.”
Among the federal laws Congress has passed that impose responsibilities
on states, the letter notes, are the National Voter Registration Act of
1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
NVRA requires states to make voter registration widely available in
places where people engage in other routine interactions with
government, such as applying for or renewing their driver’s license or
state identification card.
It also provides a uniform voter registration application form that
requires applicants to attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are
U.S. citizens, over the age of 18 and meet the state’s residency
requirements for voter eligibility.
HAVA also requires that mail-in voter registration forms include a line
where applicants check a box to indicate whether they are a U.S.
citizen.
The letter states that voter registration forms in Illinois comply with
those standards and, “If an applicant does not make the required
certification of citizenship, the voter registration application is
denied.”
The letter also states that Illinois election officials routinely check
their rolls against several state and federal data sources, including
data from the Department of Corrections to identify voters who are
incarcerated for felony convictions and records from the Illinois
Department of Public Health to identify registered voters who have
recently died. Illinois also participates in the multistate Electronic
Registration Information Center, or ERIC, whose members share voter
registration and motor vehicle information to track voters who move from
one member state to another.
Finally, the letter states that local election authorities routinely
update their lists by mailing direct notices to voters to determine
whether registered voters are still living at the same address.
“Illinois’s multilayered approach to voter list maintenance is working,”
Malowitz said in the letter to DOJ. “This commitment precludes
establishing the specific intent and/or willfulness required for
criminal liability under the laws cited in your letter.”
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a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
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