State Board of Elections investigating websites publishing voter names, addresses, birthdates
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — Illinois voters’ information, including full names, birthdates and addresses, are being published online.
Websites masquerading as legitimate news sources are posting personal information in nearly every major city in Illinois. The State Board of Elections has asked the publisher of these sites, Local Government Information Services, to take them down.
After every election, the state keeps a voter data file with all of this information, but it was only made available for purchase to political action committees for “political purposes”, and to government entities.
“Typically, that is to create mailing lists, or to use with their ‘Get Out the Vote’ efforts,” State Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich said.
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The state has a publicly available version of the voter roll, but it does not include addresses or dates of birth. Dietrich said that is for good reason.
“The reason that we stopped putting full dates of birth, in even the restricted file, in 2018 is for identity theft,” Dietrich said. “We’re in a different time now. And we want to safeguard voters personal information.”
Local Government Information Services publishes 20 websites across the state. The websites are a part of a larger conservative umbrella organization, including 11 faux newspapers full of highly politicized right-leaning stories that have become commonplace during election years and leading up to the implementation of the SAFE-T Act.
LGIS was originally funded by a political action committee called Liberty Principles PAC. The State Board of Elections believes that’s how it got this information. That PAC no longer exists, but LGIS held on to the voter roll information the PAC was granted access too.
“We haven’t had this happen before. So we have contacted the Attorney General, about whether there is anything legally that can be done about this,” Dietrich said. “And we’re still in the very early stages of that.”
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Some of the first posts with this information were first made in February of this year, but it started gaining attention first in McLean County.
After initially sharing links to the McLean County Times on social media channels, the McLean County Republican Party released the following statement:
“McLean County Republicans was the first to draw attention to the fact that the McLean County Times was releasing voter information, precinct-by-precinct, from the 2020 general election. We found this release disturbing. While not illegal, we believe the release of information to be unethical. The MCGOP has distanced itself from the Times by removing links to its website from our webpage.”
The State Board of Elections is exploring potential legal options. Dietrich told WCIA that representatives from LGIS told him Tuesday these posts would be taken down.
So far, as of this Friday, LGIS’s websites are still full of these posts.
The Illinois Press Association has spent years disavowing LGIS’ papers and websites.
“The publications at issue are not members of the Illinois Press Association, for the simple reason that they do not meet the requirements of the bylaws of the IPA,” IPA president Don Craven said in a statement. “The bylaws require a commitment to local journalism that we think is lacking in these publications.”
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