DuPage County has added its name to a list -- hopefully an accurate one -- of Illinois counties objecting to the way a conservative government oversight group has counted state voter rolls.
Election commission officials in the county are pointing to the methodology Judicial Watch used in ascertaining what it called illegal voter registration figures, which prompted the group to send lawsuit ultimatums to 11 states, including lllinois.
Judicial Watch accused DuPage and 23 other Illinois counties of having more voters on their registration records than they has eligible voters. The group gave the state 90 days to rectify the matter before facing a possible lawsuit.
“We think the problem may be their use of inactive voters among their vote count,” Joe Sobecki, interim executive director of the DuPage County Election Commission, told the DuPage Policy Journal. “We’re questioning the data they used and believe they may be misinterpreting the status of some voters.”
Judicial Watch officials counter that their figures come from calculations by the U.S. Census Bureau. The group said it found good reason to believe the counties were failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act by keeping inaccurate records.
Sobecki argued that Judicial Watch was off the mark.
"Everything we’ve done has been in compliance with what’s legal," Sobecki said. “Our hope is that this can be resolved quickly."
Meanwhile, Illinois Voter Registration System's officials are taking a similar stance in assessing Judicial Watch’s findings.
Director Kyle Thomas said the organization that oversees the statewide voting system has concerns about the way the information was gathered and wonders if, at least in some instances, active and inactive numbers were mixed.
He said that of the 11 counties cited by Judicial Watch, registration figures indicate only Monroe County's numbers might be off.
Besides Illinois, the group sent letters to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Alerts Sign-up