What’s really going on with mail-in voting in Chicago?

According to the Chicago Board of Elections’ database, as of early August there were 2,115,542 registered voters in Chicago. Of those, 1,570,753 were in active status.

Two addresses share the title of having the greatest number of active voters. The first is 2700 S. California; that’s right, Cook County Jail. The second is in the 3700 block of South Indiana. Each has 1,019 registered active voters.

All told, there are 18 properties in Chicago with 100 or more active voters. 74 properties have 50 or more active voters and 757 addresses have 10 or more individuals “living” there representing 19,823 active voters.

How can this be?

Under Illinois law, 10 ILCS 5/3-2(b)

A homeless individual must have a mailing address in order to be eligible to register to vote. For purposes of this Act, a mailing address shall constitute a homeless individual's residence for voting purposes. A mailing address of a homeless individual may include, but is not limited to, a shelter, a day shelter, or a private residence.

Scrolling through the list of addresses generally confirms the obvious. The vast majority of these addresses with hundreds of active registered voters are in fact shelters. Others are veterans’ homes or long-term care facilities. That address on South Indiana Avenue belongs to Matthew’s House, a homeless shelter and food pantry. Here’s a list of the top 10 addresses:

• 2700 S. California – Cook County Jail – 1019 voters
• 3700 S. Indiana – Matthews House – 1019 voters
• 400 N. St. Louis – Breakthrough Men’s Center – 852 voters
• 2700 W. Harrison – Franciscan Outreach – 481 voters
• 3300 W. Carroll – Breakthrough Women’s Center – 437 voters
• 2900 W. Lake – Above & Beyond – 299 voters
• 1700 N. Ashland – Midnight Ministries – >210 voters (multiple unit numbers)
• 500 W. 14th – Pacific Garden Mission – >200 voters (at multiple addresses)
• 800 N. Christina – Salvation Army – 174 voters
• 300 N. Central – Central Plaza – 155 voters

The list goes on and on. Whether or not this is a good idea is a different topic; this is not an argument for or against registering voters at shelters. It’s undeniable that Chicago has a homeless problem. Allowing the homeless to use a shelter as a registered address is the probably the right thing to do. However, since the proliferation of mail-in voting it does make one wonder who is actually filling out the ballots.

But there are other problems as well. The law calls for the Chicago Board of Elections to use United States Postal Service returned mail as the primary source for list hygiene. That is, the only way that the CBOE will move a voter to inactive status is if the USPS returns the election card as “undeliverable” or if another government agency specifically notifies the CBOE of a voters change of address.

Just so it is abundantly clear, nothing in this article should be taken as an accusation of fraud. It’s not. It’s also not meant to suggest that the outcome of any prior election would have been different if this or that took place. This is not about election hypotheticals. This is about facts surrounding who is registered and eligible to vote in Chicago.

Even without making any accusations of fraud, it’s certainly appropriate to ask questions about the voting procedure taking place at these shelters. What happens to all the registration cards sent by CBOE? It’s reasonable to assume the post office does not know who is or is not using any particular shelter as an address. A fair conclusion is that USPS does not return any of the election cards as undeliverable. The most likely scenario is the USPS delivers all the mail to the shelter regardless of whose name it is addressed to.

The next question is what does the shelter do with the election cards it receives? Does the shelter sort through 500, 800, or 1000 cards and determine when was the last time they saw each of these individuals? Does Matthew’s House have a wall with 1000 little pigeonholes where they put everyone’s mail? That’s unlikely. Does the shelter return any of the cards to the CBOE as undeliverable? Not bloody likely. What most likely happens is that the shelter accepts the cards on behalf of the homeless and returns none of them as undeliverable.

The unfortunate reality is that once an individual is registered to vote at a shelter, there is no method for moving that voter to inactive status. That, in and of itself, is a problem. Add to it mail-in voting and we’ve created a situation simply asking for abuse.

But the situation at the shelters is not the only issue. In fact, it’s only the beginning.

Because the CBOE is relying on the USPS to return mail as undeliverable, wherever and whenever that doesn’t happen the number of voters at any address slowly creeps up. Looking at a list of commercial/condo buildings, here is a short sample of interesting addresses:

• One E. Erie – FedEx Office – 33 voters
• 69 W. Washington – County Building – 29 voters
• 4750 N. Sheridan – Institute of Cultural Affairs – 21 voters
• 1120 N. Lake Shore Drive – Condo – 8 voters
• 4554 N. Broadway – Commercial Space – 8 voters
• 8052 S. Loomis – Apartment – 8 voters
• 1040 N. Lake Shore Drive – 2 Bed Condo – 7 voters
• 1300 N. State – 2 Bed Condo – 7 voters

Note: Apartment/unit numbers are deliberately excluded. Similarly, for individual residences only the block number is provided. This is not an exercise to dox, harass, or shame anyone. This is merely shining sunlight on an issue which affects everybody.

Then, there are the condo/apartment buildings where no unit number is given. It appears safe to assume the USPS is not returning mail as undeliverable from any of these addresses either.

• 1165 N. Milwaukee – 33 voters
• 5030 N. Marine – 21 voters
• 5495 S. Hyde Park – 20 voters
• 10858 S. Michigan – 19 voters
• 155 N. Harbor – 19 voters

There are hundreds of such buildings representing thousands of registered voters.

As if that was not enough, there are single-family homes with more active registered voters than reasonable voting eligible residents.

• 1500 block N. Menard – 12 voters
• 2700 block W. Greenleaf – 12 voters
• 2800 block W. Walnut – 12 voters
• 3600 block W. Douglas – 12 voters
• 6900 block N. Oleander – 10 voters

Is it possible that 12 voting-age adults can be living in the same three-bedroom house? Of course. But it’s not reasonable to believe it’s a regular, frequent occurrence which should be dismissed out of hand as normal.

It’s not normal. None of this – from the shelters to people living in commercial spaces – is normal. And in the past it was probably tolerable if not outright acceptable. Because everyone had to go vote in person, a little sloppiness in the voter rolls was not a big deal. However, as mail-in voting becomes more common, we see the need for some changes in election policy.

Lest there be any doubt, let’s take a look at the impact of mail-in voting.

Below is a chart showing the total number of votes cast in Chicago in the last six November general elections stacked by voting method.

For starters, it’s obvious more people vote in the presidential elections than in the mid-terms. That’s a well established trend that has existed nationally throughout history.

One, perhaps unusual, observation is that while the total vote in 2012 was just over 725,000 votes, that number swelled to nearly 958,000 in 2016. The number of in-person voters was about the same, rising slightly from 526,000 in 2012 to 562,000 2016. The biggest driver in the count was early voting which nearly doubled from 176,002 to 284,000. Nevertheless, there was a 4x increase in the number of mail-in votes from just over 15,000 to nearly 66,000.

However it was accomplished, it was an increase of 223,000 votes. Does Chicago really love Hillary Clinton that much more than Barack Obama?

In 2020, the next presidential election, the country was reeling with Covid. Only 300,000 folks voted in-person. Nearly 390,000 – stood six-feet apart, braved the disease and – went to early voting. An absolutely astronomical 455,442 votes were cast via mail-in voting.

Another way of looking at the voting trend is to group the numbers by ballot type.

The trends in early and mail-in voting are undeniable.

Also undeniable is that there was something extremely unusual with mail-in voting in 2020.

Again, nothing in this article should be taken as an accusation of fraud. It’s not. It’s also not meant to suggest that the outcome of any prior election would have been different if this or that took place. These are simply factual observations based on Chicago’s voting history.

Nevertheless, in 2020, Chicagoans cast 1.17M votes. 455,000 of those were mail-in ballots.

Looking at all of the 2020 voters, regardless of their voting method, 411,000 of them did NOT vote in 2016. Over 555,000 of them did NOT vote, by any method, in 2022.

In fact, there were over 180,000 voters in 2020 who did NOT cast a ballot in the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, or 2022 elections.

It’s astounding and undeniable as to what an unusual (and statistically impossible) election took place in 2020. Over 10 percent of the people who voted in 2020 had not done so in the prior four federal elections and then failed to vote again in 2022. The only possible conclusion to be drawn is that when a mail-in ballot is sent to every registered voter, people – but we don’t know exactly who – send them in.

Just so it’s abundantly clear, Trump lost Chicago by nearly 1M votes. But multiple things can be true at the same time. It’s possible that there was no situation whereby Trump could win Chicago (or Illinois) while simultaneously there were significant voting irregularities regarding the use of mail-in ballots. Those concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Putting the freakishness of the 2020 election aside, in 2012, mail-in voting represented only 2.13 percent of votes cast. In 2022, nearly a quarter (23.98%) of all ballots counted were mailed-in. It appears that we are going to have mail-in voting for the foreseeable future and its relevance will only continue to grow.

Which brings us to the Permanent Roster. The Permanent Roster is a new law in Illinois whereby registered voters will receive a mail-in ballot for each election without having to apply for an absentee ballot. What this means is that in Chicago, the CBOE will automatically mail a ballot, for every election, to everyone on the Permanent Roster whether that address is at a shelter, a commercial space, or even to 12 voting age adults living in a three bedroom house, ad infinitum, until the USPS returns mail as undeliverable.

The Permanent Roster law is putting out a fire with kerosene.

This situation is not going to resolve itself. It’s gonna require some changes. Thankfully, those changes are actually not difficult to execute. They will however need some political capital to be accomplished. Here’s a few ideas that could be completed quickly without any changes in the current law:

• The CBOE should take it upon itself to make sure that every voter is registered at a legitimate “residential” address. Every address should be CASS certified and verified through the Cook County Assessor’s list of known PINs. Anyone registered to vote from a commercial address needs to correct their registration or be placed in inactive status.
• The voter rolls must be searched for duplicates based on similar names and birth dates.
• Addresses with a high number of voters – particularly single-family homes or individual apartments/condos – should be reviewed and people not legitimately residing at such address would need to correct their registration or be placed in inactive status.
• The CBOE should work with the Cook County Clerk to make sure every city resident who has died is marked as non-eligible to vote.

Beyond that, more fundamental adjustments will require something from Springfield. For example, DMV “Real ID” records should be used to confirm identification, addresses, and citizenship status.

The first step to solving anything is recognizing that there is a problem. In this case, the problem is not about voter fraud or the denial of election outcomes. The problem is a set of laws that were created decades ago which don’t meet the needs of our modern society.

We can have a system of voting which is clunky, confusing, opaque, and ripe for abuse which only leads people to doubt the results which in turn causes the breakdown of society. Or instead, we can have a voting process which is inclusive, transparent, and secure so that everyone has confidence in every ballots’ authenticity, accuracy, and chain of custody.

The time to fix this is now.