Lisa Forst, a Downers Grove Township precinct committeeman and Illinois Freedom Alliance board member, said she volunteers with election integrity groups because she believes fraud allegations and disputes over electronic voting have raised questions about election safeguards.
“I volunteer for a lot of election integrity groups—whatever I can, whatever I can do to help,” Forst told DuPage Policy Journal. “If I think it’ll help, I’ll help, you know. I will help people out.”
Forst is taking part in the “Defending Your Vote Summit” on Feb. 21 at Southbridge Church in Orland Park.
Organizers say the event will train participants to hand-count ballots if electronic systems are compromised. The summit runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets cost $60 with meals or $35 without, with group rates and sponsorships available.
The program
The “Defending Your Vote Summit” on Feb. 21 in Orland Park will teach attendees to audit, hand-count and protect elections, with demos, vendors and training on securing voter integrity. (Illinois Freedom Alliance)
Forst said alleged election-related misconduct in other states has raised questions about whether similar activity could occur locally.
“Imagine the fraud in Minnesota that’s being uncovered,” she said. “How can we not imagine that it’s not happening to our election? That’s a huge takeaway, and it’s the truth. If that’s going on behind our backs with taxpayer money, from the Zuckerbucks to everything else that’s been happening.”
Forst cited former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted for her role in a 2021 election security breach, as an example of citizen activism regarding electronic voting systems.
“She’s 71 years old, a Gold Star mother,” Forst said. “Her job as the clerk was to save the drive. What happened was they erased them all, and the data they printed out was different than what she saved on the drive.”
The Heritage Foundation reports that Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison for her involvement in a 2021 election security breach tied to unauthorized access to county election systems.
Peters later received a pardon from President Donald Trump. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is considering whether to grant clemency.
Trump has also addressed election procedures publicly, posting on Truth Social in August 2025 that he would pursue an executive order to prohibit mail-in ballots and voting machines.
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election,” Trump said.
Forst pointed to ongoing court battles over ballot counting and access to voter rolls as further evidence of what she described as unresolved election integrity concerns.
“There’s a lot of court cases,” she said. “There’s one Tom Fitton case where they’re trying to stop counting ballots after election day.”
Judicial Watch announced a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing candidate standing to challenge election laws.
The case, filed on behalf of U.S. Rep. Mike Bost and two presidential electors, challenged an Illinois law that permits ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day to be counted. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton described the ruling as historic.
“This is the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a generation.”
Fitton said lower courts had previously blocked similar cases and argued the decision confirms candidates’ ability to challenge election rules they believe undermine integrity, adding that “American citizens concerned about election integrity should celebrate this Supreme Court victory.”
In its opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed that candidates have a legally protectable interest in election administration.
“Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections… [that] extends to the integrity of the election — and the democratic process by which they earn or lose the support of the people they seek to represent,” the U.S. Supreme Court said in its ruling.
Bost welcomed the decision.
“I’m thankful the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled strongly in our favor and concluded we have standing to challenge Illinois’ unconstitutional law,” he said.
He called the ruling “a critically important step forward in the fight for election integrity and fair elections” and said it underscores the need to “restore the people’s trust in our elections.”
The case began in 2022 and was initially dismissed by lower courts for lack of standing before being taken up by the Supreme Court. Judicial Watch noted the ruling as part of its broader election integrity efforts, pointing to recent court decisions allowing its voter roll lawsuits to proceed in several states and reporting that its work has resulted in the removal of “more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.”
She said inconsistencies in how election data is shared raise additional transparency concerns.
“That went to the Supreme Court. And then the DOJ is trying to get the voter rolls, which they do have a right to get. All of these blue states are giving, happily handing over, their voter rolls to all of the NGOs. But they won’t give them to the DOJ. So when you look at it that way, it’s kind of puzzling.”
Election security concerns have also surfaced internationally. Federal prosecutors in Miami have charged Smartmatic executives in connection with an alleged bribery and money-laundering scheme related to the 2016 Philippine elections. Dominion, the largest voting machine provider in the U.S., supplied Smartmatic with precinct-count optical scan machines used in the Philippines’ 2010 and 2013 elections, where reported glitches during the 2010 vote raised questions about system reliability.
Within Illinois, election administration has also faced scrutiny.
In DuPage County, mail-in ballot requests submitted in the names of deceased voters during the 2020 election led to a criminal investigation.
During the 2024 election, then-State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Macon) raised concerns after electronic voting machines malfunctioned in Champaign County on Election Day.
Illinois’ history of election fraud has been widely documented. Former Federal Election Commission member Hans von Spakovsky, writing for the Heritage Foundation, pointed to Chicago’s long record of systemic election misconduct, including the 1982 Illinois governor’s race, where a federal investigation uncovered at least 100,000 fraudulent votes and resulted in 65 indictments, most of which led to convictions.
Von Spakovsky argues that similar vulnerabilities remain, particularly in close elections, and that vigilance is necessary to protect election outcomes.
The documented fraud included ballots cast in the names of deceased individuals, duplicate voters, felons, and fictitious registrants, which investigators attributed to political control over election administration and limited oversight.
Block Club Chicago reports that the city’s reputation for “voting early and voting often” dates back to the early 20th century, when political machines relied on bribery, ballot manipulation, and violence. Historical accounts also connect Chicago machine politics to claims that the Democratic organization helped John F. Kennedy carry Illinois in the 1960 presidential election.
Illinois Freedom Alliance is a grassroots political organization focused on civic engagement, constitutional rights advocacy, election integrity initiatives, and providing organizational support for candidates, volunteers and election-related activities.
