No Republican nominee for president has won Illinois since 1988. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by more than 1 million votes in the last election two years ago.
As a reliably blue state, Illinois largely has been spared from the viral conspiracy theories about vote fraud and threats against elections officials that have plagued swing states including Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.
But now Illinois is on the receiving end of the latest wave of copycat letters from election conspiracy theorists across the country. They threaten legal action against state election officials and local authorities who run the voting process.
In one letter, a woman from Mokena wrote to county clerks: “I am an aggrieved citizen of the United States and the state of Illinois, and I am contemplating filing a lawsuit against the relevant parties pertaining to the continuing concerns I have regarding the integrity of all elections that took place after December 31, 2019.”
This letter and similar missives demand that election authorities store and provide copies of a laundry list of records. In the Mokena woman’s “notice of prospective litigation” to Chicago election officials, she demanded authorities maintain “paper ballots … which may be necessary for a post-tabulation audit.”
Despite offering no proof of election fraud and making no specific accusations, some of the letter writers make vague insinuations. One letter told Chicago officials there is “reason to believe” elections were not fair and that there is “credible information” that supposedly has emerged about vote fraud.
In recent weeks, such letters have gone to the city of Chicago’s Board of Election Commissioners, the Cook County clerk’s office — which runs elections in the suburbs just outside of Chicago — and the Illinois State Board of Elections. A spokesman for the state election board said officials believe the letters have gone to clerks in every county in Illinois.
Bailey: ‘Lot of concern about voter fraud’
Darren Bailey, the Republican nominee for governor, acknowledges there’s no reason to doubt the validity of Biden’s election. Yet Bailey has sought to make “election integrity” a cornerstone of his campaign for the state’s highest office.
“As you know, there is a lot of concern about voter fraud out there, and there’s a lot of frustration,” Bailey said in an interview. “So, first and foremost, we have to restore integrity to our process. But there is no doubt that the constitutional process was followed [in the 2020 presidential election], and [Biden] is president.”
Bailey boasts of the bills he has proposed as a state legislator that he said would “restore confidence in elections” in Illinois. None of them has passed.
One bill, which Bailey co-sponsored with other far-right state legislators a few years ago, sought to have the state elections board participate in the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which was touted by some Republicans in other states but was suspended as part of a legal settlement in 2019.
Earlier in his campaign, before winning the Republican primary in June, Bailey promised to create an “Election Integrity Task Force.”
“As governor, Darren will ensure every legal vote is counted quickly and accurately,” according to an archived page for the task force on the Bailey campaign’s website. “We can trust Darren to restore Illinois and restore Americans’ faith in our election process.”
Since then, the campaign has removed any mention of the task force from the website and is focusing on recruiting his supporters to become poll watchers for the November general election in which he’ll face Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
The head of Bailey’s push to recruit poll watchers is David Paul Blumenshine, who organized a busload of protesters from Illinois who attended the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bailey said his campaign has trained about 1,500 poll watchers. But an aide did not say where those poll watchers are registered or where they would be assigned to help during the election.
“We’re hoping to get close to 4,000 poll watchers,” Bailey said. “I can assign these workers in precincts where we feel the need to assign them. And, you know, data shows that when there is a trained poll watcher on the ground that, you know, is not being bullied and they know what they’re doing, fraud can be curbed.”
Without making specific accusations or providing any proof, Bailey said, “We’re letting a lot slide under our noses.”
Nationwide effort spurred by My Pillow CEO
The letters sent recently to election authorities across Illinois are similarly rife with unsubstantiated assertions of wrongdoing in the voting process.
One of the letter writers was Michelle Turney, a former Chicago police officer who filed to run for Illinois secretary of state as a Republican but got knocked off the ballot after her nominating signatures petitions were challenged.
Turney had advocated for the sale of “all voting machines.” A social media account showed her attendance at the rally that President Trump spoke at before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in the U.S. Capitol. She has not been charged with any crime in Washington.
In an email she signed Sept. 3, Turney wrote to Chicago elections officials: “Evidence continues to amass which demonstrates that America has not had free or fair elections since 2017. I have reason to believe your organizations may have directly or indirectly contributed to the fraudulently installed individuals whose actions have resulted in the destruction of our communities.”
Turney’s email also said: “I AM CONSIDERING SUING YOU FOR YOUR AND YOUR ORGANIZATION’S INVOLVMENT [sic] IN THE FRAUDELENT [sic] ELECTIONS THAT WILL SOON BE PROVEN TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE SINCE 2017. Any attempts by your or your organization to destroy the election records and accompanying relevant documentation that I, as your benefactor and employer, have demanded [of] you will be met with the harshest possible criminal and civil repercussions available under the law.”
Turney did not respond to messages seeking comment.
She and a Burr Ridge man had sent the Cook County clerk’s office letters that are identical to the message the Mokena woman sent around the same time to Chicago election officials.
Votebeat, a nonpartisan website covering voting and elections, reported earlier this month that letters were sent to practically every state in response to calls from conspiracy theorists, including Mike Lindell, chief executive officer of My Pillow, a Trump supporter who continues to state without proof that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Lindell and others have called on sympathizers to request these records, providing them with a template many are using. The requesters are then directed to provide whatever they get back to a central repository for analysis.
Jessica Huseman, Votebeat’s editorial director, said the requesters are seeking something known in elections parlance as “cast vote record.” But that can’t be used to show fraud, Huseman said.
“There’s no indication that any of these records are going to be used productively,” she said. “Really, it’s just a misinformation campaign. But more than that, I think it is a campaign to kind of grind these small offices to a halt and deluge them with public records requests, and that’s unfortunate.”
Huseman said the requests for voluminous records picked up after Lindell issued a call for supporters a few weeks ago.
“These are clearly very organized public records campaigns, even though they’re meant to look like they’re grassroots because somebody puts their individual name on it,” she said. “But obviously these folks aren’t just conveniently writing the exact same words.”
Many threats but no lawsuits
A spokesman said Chicago’s election board has received three different form letters, including one with the subject line of “Class Action Lawsuit,” and about a dozen senders have used each of those three templates.
Officials for the Chicago board, the Cook County clerk and the state elections board said they haven’t received the threats of physical harm that have been seen in states in which Biden only narrowly beat Trump.
Chicago and state election officials also said nobody has acted on their threats to sue them.
“Election deniers” occasionally have made wild and personal accusations against officials who oversee balloting in Illinois, according to email exchanges obtained by WBEZ. In April 2021, a man wrote to Illinois election authorities, imploring them to overturn Trump’s defeat.
“I have wrote [sic] over 1,100 lawmakers from around the nation and NOT ONE has been able to prove, show, or even tell me any evidence that there was no voter fraud in the last election! NOT ONE!!!” the man wrote. “I wouldn’t put it past any of you pathetic, sick pigs that you all molest children!”
It was one of 15 emails the same man sent to the state election board over several months.
Another man wrote to the state demanding “a full forensic audit,” saying, “I am hearing stories on the internet that Trump won Illinois.”
A state elections official replied that officials do conduct audits.
“The 2020 General Election has been certified,” the official wrote to the man. “We conducted our statewide random retabulation as required by statute and the results were accurate.”
