A U.S. Federal Judge issued an injunction against an expansion of same-day voter registration in Illinois yesterday and a local congressional candidate is a plaintiff in the case.
The law being challenged forces counties with a population larger than 100,000 to provide same-day registration for voters at all polling places but smaller counties would only have to do so at a centralized location for same-day registration, like a county clerk’s office.
Patrick Harlan, running as the Republican opposition to Rep. Cheri Bustos in the race for the 17th U.S. Congressional seat this November joined with Liberty Justice Center, a public interest group, arguing that the law violated the 14th amendment and favored urban over rural voters.
U.S. Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan (dehr-YAY’-gehnz) agreed saying lower population counties would have a “severe burden” on their right to vote.
The law was in effect for March primaries, which slowed precincts reporting results, but also resulted in record primary turnout for Illinois and for Knox County.
Harlan tells WGIL it should be all Illinois counties with same-day registration at polling places or none of them.
“Currently we’re not set up for that operation to be able to do that but we have to just go with the alternative and that is to just stop this until we can actually get so it’s fair for everybody,” Harlan says.
Congresswoman Bustos thinks it should be made easier to have same-day voter registration in every Illinois county.
Her communication director Jared Smith criticizes the Harlan suit saying it “makes it more difficult for new voters, particularly young people to make their voices heard.”
