Voting Rights Advocates Testify Before Illinois House Committee for Strong & Timely AVR Implementation

Voting Rights Project Director Ami Gandhi and Jeff Raines of CHANGE IL deliver testimony on before the House Elections & Campaign Finance Committee.

This morning, leaders with the Just Democracy Illinois coalition, including our Director of Voting Rights & Civic Empowerment Ami Gandhi, gave testimony before the Illinois House Elections & Campaign Finance Committee detailing the coalition's concerns about reported delays in the implementation of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR).

AVR was enacted in 2017 in Illinois, with unanimous bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Yet it appears that Illinois will not meet the July 1, 2018 deadline written in the law for establishing opt-out voter registration at Driver Services facilities, the cornerstone of AVR and the tool that would actually make registration “automatic”. Instead, the Secretary of State’s office testified that they expect to have opt-out registration ready in January of 2019 - after the November midterm election and very close to the February municipal elections.

A final public hearing on AVR will take place in Chicago later this month, and details will be announced by the Illinois State Board of Elections.