Federal judge rules against Cook County GOP’s effort to prevent expanded vote-by-mail
A federal judge on Thursday rejected a bid by the Cook County Republican Party to block the state’s enhanced vote-by-mail program, rejecting as conjecture allegations that the program was a scheme aimed at disenfranchising GOP voters.
U.S. District Judge Robert Dow ruled the Cook County GOP also was tardy in filing its lawsuit in August seeking a preliminary injunction over the law approved in May as an effort to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by offering an alternative to traditional in-person voting.
Dow’s ruling also noted existing state statute is aimed at preventing so-called ballot harvesting by political operatives, requiring a voter authorization signed on the exterior of vote-by-mail ballots that are dropped off to election authorities or at drop boxes as an alternative.
The legislation passed by the General Assembly this spring authorized election officials to send millions of vote-by-mail ballot applications to people who voted in the 2018 general election, the 2019 municipal elections or the 2020 March primary. Officials have said more than 1.3 million ballot requests have been received, with many more expected as people seek to avoid in-person voting amid the pandemic.
The Cook County GOP lawsuit, filed Aug. 10, alleged Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure into law to create “a partisan voting scheme that is designed to harvest Democratic ballots, dilute Republican ballots, and, if the election still doesn’t turn out the way he wants it, to generate enough Democratic ballots after election day to sway the result.”
But Dow’s ruling against the GOP’s request for a preliminary injunction said the local political party failed to prove that it was “likely that the type of wide scale fraud it describes will occur” as a result of the new law. Dow also said the GOP failed to show “irreparable harm” could occur.
“Looking at the record compiled to date in this litigation, however, Plaintiff (the Cook County GOP) has provided no basis for concluding that its alleged harms are anything but speculative and therefore fails to demonstrate that ‘irreparable injury is likely in the absence of an injunction,’” Dow wrote.
“Because Plaintiff’s allegations rest primarily on unsupported speculation and secondarily on isolated instances of voter fraud in other states and historical examples from Illinois during the prior century, Plaintiff cannot demonstrate either that it is likely to suffer irreparable harm or that it has some chance of success on the merits. Thus, the court denies Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction,” the judge wrote.
The Republicans alleged that a provision of the law that made Nov. 3 a state holiday, allowing government buildings such as schools to be used as Election Day polling places with fewer people inside, was an attempt to use government workers, as well as teachers and students, to create “an army of workers to harvest” ballots.
Harvesting ballots is a method in which a political organization or an individual collects ballots cast at home and deposits them with local election authorities.
But Dow noted the state’s election law generally makes it “unlawful for any person not the voter or a person authorized by the voter to take the ballot and ballot envelope of a voter for deposit into the mail.”
The state’s election code notes that if a voter “authorized a person to deliver the ballot to the election authority,” it requires “the voter and the person authorized to deliver the ballot” to “complete (an) authorization printed on the exterior envelope supplied by an election authority for the return of the vote by mail ballot.”
Dow said contrary to the GOP’s allegation, “the Election Code does not permit just anyone to return the voter’s ballot. And it certainly does not permit anyone to systematically collect but fail to submit Republican ballots.”
Dow joined the federal bench in 2007 as an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush.
Attorneys for the Cook County GOP sought to portray the ruling as a victory against ballot harvesting. The GOP was represented by the Liberty Justice Center, a legal arm affiliated with the conservative-leaning Illinois Policy Institute and connected to the Illinois Opportunity Project.
“While we are disappointed that the judge did not grant our motion for preliminary injunction, we are pleased with his ruling regarding ballot harvesting,” attorney Brian Kelsey said in a statement.
“As election officials begin counting ballots, we will closely monitor the execution of this new program and are committed to ensuring every vote counts,” Kelsey said.
rpearson@chicagotribune.com
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