Dupage Policy Journal

Former Illinois state Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) presented more evidence on Friday that she alleges confirms that Breakthrough Ideas, the policy group she co-founded, was correct in its initial assessment of an unlawful vote by a former DuPage County resident.

The voter in question, who currently lives and is registered to vote in Florida, was the topic of a Chicago Tribune editorial earlier this month, which stated the voter had voted legally in the 2020 general election, and accused Breakthrough Ideas of perpetuating former President Donald Trump’s incorrect argument that the election was stolen.

“Shame on you, for writing a hit piece on me and mischaracterizing our work,” Ives said referring to the Tribune during a Friday news conference.

Ives said the voter, whom she did not identify, used his old address when re-registering to vote in July 2020 and not a new one in DuPage County used by his wife.

John Morrissey, lead analyst on Breakthrough Idea’s ballot integrity project, knocked on the doors of the old address and the new one the man’s wife used to register.

“There was no answer at the old address and the people at the new address had never heard of the man or his wife before,” Morrissey said at the news conference.

The couple currently lives live in Naples, Florida and are registered to vote there.

Ives attributed the mix-up to sloppiness on the county clerk’s part rather than fraud on the voter’s part.

An October Chicago Tribune news story covering the argument by Breakthrough Ideas that the voter, and more than 1,300 others unlawfully used old DuPage County addresses to vote, cited a statement from Clerk Jean Kaczmarek’s office that the voter in question “notified the clerk’s office months before the election that they had moved elsewhere within DuPage County and cast the proper ballot.”

Ives, who ran against incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten in 2020, said the voter they chose to highlight the inaccuracies in the county voter rolls was picked at random. He is registered as a Republican, and remains on the voter rolls.

“There is so much confusion about this,” she said. “It makes no sense.”

The 1,343 voters Breakthrough Ideas found using old county address to vote in 2020 is a conservative estimate, Ives said.

Illinois law has a 30-day residency requirement prior to an election day to vote.

The group also found a 129-vote overcount in the 2020 general election in only two precincts in Addison Township. At least voter was counted as having voted twice. 

Again, Ives said that the clerk’s office, not the voter, is to blame for the error.

Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in DuPage County by more than 87,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election.