Open Illinois.org

Last week I began a process of acquiring voter records in the City of Chicago in order to examine irregularities. Although my project continues, I wanted to let you know about something that I found highly disturbing. 

First of all, let me give credit where credit is due. Joan Agnew of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners–she’s their FOIA officer–responded to my request for information promptly, professionally and cordially. She should be commended for being so on-the-ball. Thanks, Joan.

Now, here’s the untoward stuff: Apparently, Illinois law allows only political or government entities to access electronic copies of voter data. Since the Illinois Policy Institute is not a partisan or government organization, we are not allowed to acquire the data electronically.

10 ILCS 5/6-35 reads: 

The State Board shall furnish copies of such tapes, discs, other electronic data or compilations thereof to state political committees registered pursuant to the Illinois Campaign Finance Act or the Federal Election Campaign Act and to governmental entities, at their request and at a reasonable cost. To protect the privacy and confidentiality of voter registration information, the disclosure of electronic voter registration records to any person or entity other than to a State or local political committee and other than to a governmental entity for a governmental purpose is specifically prohibited…

So there we have it. Non-profit research institutions–and media companies, I would imagine–cannot acquire electronic voter data in Illinois. Ms. Agnew offered to print out the list (with a charge) for me, but there would be no way that that information would be useful to me. 

Why can’t Ms. Agnew provide me with this information? She’s just following the law–it’s not her fault. But, then, why is the law so restrictive?

Some people have said that this is because the government doesn’t want voter lists to become available to marketing companies that can use the lists to send product pitches out. Well, I can understand that. But then why not make the information available to non-profit and media organizations?