CHICAGO — As another election approaches, the Illinois Republican Party and its allies are facing a conundrum — urging followers to cast ballots by mail while trying not to alienate followers of former President Donald Trump, who continues to insist that mail-in votes are “automatically corrupt.”
Although most elections on Tuesday are officially nonpartisan, Republicans and allied groups are actively backing candidates in municipal, school and library board and other races.
The state GOP is pushing the use of mail-in ballots at the same time it is promoting “election integrity” training featuring a 2020 election denier. But the party’s chairman has acknowledged the GOP faces an “uphill battle” if it doesn’t jump in on voting by mail, even as the party hedges its language to appease the GOP core where Trump continues to hold strong sway.
