(The Chicago Tribune) – The Cook County Republican Party filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block the state’s new enhanced vote-by-mail law, contending the measure was a scheme by Democrats under Gov. J.B. Pritzker to amplify their vote totals and dilute GOP ballots in the Nov. 3 general election.
The sponsor of the new law, state Sen. Julie Morrison of Deerfield, called the lawsuit’s allegations “totally unfounded” and said it was aimed at providing voters with a greater opportunity to avoid casting in-person ballots in response to the pandemic.
The suit alleges that while “voting is a fundamental, constitutional right that is central to our democracy,” Pritzker “violated this right by signing into law a partisan voting scheme that is designed to harvest Democratic ballots, dilute Republican ballots, and, if the election still doesn’t turn out the way he wants it, to generate enough Democratic ballots after election day to sway the result.”
The suit contends Democrats in the legislature “snuck through” the legislation in May, “rushing it to passage before the people of Illinois could weigh in with their opposition.”
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Harvesting ballots is a method in which a political organization or an individual collects ballots cast at home and deposits them with local election authorities.
The suit also contends provisions allowing ballots submitted or postmarked by midnight on Election Day to still be counted two weeks later creates the potential for fraud.
“Illinois state government is one of the most inept in the Union, and the public has no reason to expect a vote-by-mail system to work any more smoothly than a variety of projects Illinois has stumbled through in recent years,” the suit contends.
The lawsuit was filed against Pritzker, the State Board of Elections, Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough and the Chicago Board of Election commissioners on behalf of the Cook County GOP by the Liberty Justice Center.
Read the full article at The Chicago Tribune.