Illinois: Aurora City Council backs Election Commission referendum | Aurora Beacon-News

The Aurora City Council has backed an effort to put a referendum on the March 18 primary ballot asking voters if they want to eliminate the Aurora Election Commission. The 9-3 vote by aldermen this week came after a debate about what authority the city has, the legality of the city’s resolution and just what is or is not voter suppression. In the end, those aldermen supporting the resolution said it simply endorses putting the question on the ballot, giving the voters a chance to vote for or against, without telling them how to vote. “We urge that the voters be able to put the question on the ballot,” said Ald. Robert O’Connor, at large. “The law provided that the voters establish (the commission), and the law provides that the voters must change it, if they want to change it.”

Illinois: ‘Embarrassing’ Voter Data Leak Will Never Happen Again, Chicago Election Chief Says | DNAinfo

The head of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Tuesday apologized to aldermen for allowing the personal information of 1.8 million Chicago registered voters to be exposed on a public server. Executive Director Lance Gough said the Aug. 12 discovery that Election Systems & Software discovered backup files stored on a Amazon Web Services server that included voter names, addresses, and dates of birth. In many cases it also included the voters’ driver’s license and state identification numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. “It was quite embarrassing,” Gough said. “I’m here to apologize. This will never happen again.”

Illinois: Voter advocates push Illinois to exit multistate voter database | Associated Press

Voter rights advocates are pushing Illinois election officials to withdraw from a longtime multistate voter registration database over questions of accuracy, security and voter suppression. The Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program is aimed at cleaning voter records and preventing voter fraud. States voluntarily provide their voter lists, and the program searches for duplicates. While a…

Illinois: Sen. Michael E. Hastings works to make sure Illinois meets challenges of the 21st century | Chicago Tribune

State Senator Michael E. Hastings (D-Tinley Park) is proud to announce the state of Illinois will be observing National Cybersecurity Awareness Month throughout October. “National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a good opportunity for Illinois residents to educate themselves on new laws and scams to protect their personal information,” Hastings said. “There are a number of resources available and new laws that will help us meet the technological challenges of the 21st century.” … The 2016 presidential elections were plagued with nationwide security breaches to 21 states’ online voting systems, including Illinois’ voter registration database. Last week, Hastings announced. Homeland Security confirmed Russian hackers were behind the breach.

Illinois: Automatic voter registration bill signed into law; Cook clerk says will enable cleanup of voter rolls | Cook County Record

When Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill on Aug. 28 to automatically register Illinois residents to vote, the man in charge of the office that oversees elections in suburban Cook County said the signature was the final piece in a long sought tool to “clean up” voter rolls in the county and elsewhere. Illinois’ automatic voter registration (AVR) “makes our voter rolls cleaner and more inclusive, streamlines the process of voter registration, cuts costs associated with paper-based voter registration and is a natural registration fraud fighter,” Cook County Clerk David Orr said in a statement. The AVR bill passed both the Senate and House in May. Illinois is the 10th state, plus Washington, D.C., to approve AVR.

Illinois: Governor Signs Automatic Voter Registration Law | Associated Press

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a measure Monday allowing automatic voter registration in Illinois, a move that comes a year after he rejected a similar measure over concerns about voter fraud. Illinois joins more than half a dozen other states with some form of automatic voter registration, which proponents say boosts civic participation. “This is good bipartisan legislation and it addresses the fundamental fact that the right to vote is foundational for the rights of Americans in our Democracy,” Rauner said at a Chicago bill signing ceremony attended by supporters. “We as a people need to do everything we can to knock down barriers, remove hurdles for all those who are eligible to vote, to be able to vote.”

Illinois: State officials put off decision on Trump panels request for voter data | Chicago Tribune

The State Board of Elections put off a decision Tuesday on the latest request for Illinois voter information made by a panel formed by President Donald Trump to look into his claims of voting irregularities in last year’s presidential election. Instead, the board is sending a letter requesting more information about the purpose of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Illinois officials also want to know whether any information provided truly could be kept confidential, as the federal panel pledged and as Illinois law requires. The privacy issue is a critical one for state election officials. In early July, the bipartisan elections board rejected an initial appeal for “publicly available” voter data by the federal panel because, under Illinois law, it had no such information available that could be publicly disclosed.

Illinois: Massive Chicago Voter Breach Underscores Importance of Cloud Security | eSecurity Planet

In a vivid reminder of the need to secure data in the cloud, researchers at UpGuard recently came across more than 1.8 million Chicago voters’ personal information exposed online in a misconfigured Amazon S3 bucket belonging to voting machine company Election Systems & Software (ES&S). The publicly downloadable data, which was discovered on August 11 by UpGuard director of strategy Jon Hendren, included voters’ names, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The data was put together by ES&S for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners prior to the 2016 election. Since Chicago only had 1.5 million active voters in November 2016, the data appears to cover all of Chicago’s voters, both active and inactive. This is part of a larger trend — other recent breaches linked to misconfigured Amazon servers have exposed 14 million Verizon customers’ data, more than 3 million WWE fan’s personal information, 4 million Dow Jones customers’ personal data, over 60,000 sensitive Pentagon files, and approximately 48,000 Indian citizens’ personal data.

Illinois: Election Systems & Software Exposes Backup of Chicago Voter Roll via AWS Bucket | Threatpost

Voter registration data belonging to the entirety of Chicago’s electoral roll—1.8 million records—was found a week ago in an Amazon Web Services bucket configured for public access. The data was a backup stored in AWS by Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a voting machine and election management systems vendor based in Omaha, Nebraska. Researchers from UpGuard made the discovery last Saturday and privately reported the leak to a government regulator who connected them to the Chicago FBI field office. The FBI then notified ES&S, which immediately pulled down the data from Amazon. Amazon buckets are configured to be private by default and require some kind of authentication to access what’s stored in them. For some reason, ES&S misconfigured its bucket to public months ago, opening the possibility that others had accessed the data before UpGuard.

Illinois: 1.8 million Chicago voter records exposed online | CNN

A voting machine company exposed 1.8 million Chicago voter records after misconfiguring a security setting on the server that stored them. Election Systems & Software (ES&S), the Nebraska-based voting software and election management company, confirmed the leak on Thursday. In a blog post, the company said the voter data leak contained names, addresses, birthdates, partial social security numbers and some driver’s license and state ID numbers stored in backup files on a server. Authorities alerted ES&S to the leak on Aug. 12, and the data was secured. A security researcher from UpGuard discovered the breach. The data did not contain any voting information, like the results of how someone voted. Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, said the leak did not contain or affect anyone’s voting ballots, which are handled by a different vendor. “We deeply regret this,” Allen said. “It was a violation of our information security protocol by the vendor.”

Illinois: Info on 1.8M Chicago voters was publicly accessible, now removed from cloud service: election officials | Chicago Tribune

A file containing the names, addresses, dates of birth and other information about Chicago’s 1.8 million registered voters was published online and publicly accessible for an unknown period of time, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said Thursday. The acknowledgment came days after a data security researcher alerted officials to the existence of the unsecured files. The researcher found the files while conducting a search of items uploaded to Amazon Web Services, a cloud system that allows users to rent storage space and share files with certain people or the general public. The files had been uploaded by Election Systems & Software, a contractor that helps maintain Chicago’s electronic poll books.

Illinois: Information about 1.8 million Chicago voters exposed on Amazon server | USA Today

Names, addresses, dates of birth and other information about Chicago’s 1.8 million registered voters was left exposed and publicly available online on an Amazon cloud-computing server for an unknown period of time, the Chicago Board of Election Commissions said. The database file was discovered on Friday by a security researcher at Upguard, a company that evaluates cyber risk. The company alerted election officials in Chicago on Saturday and the file was taken down three hours later. The exposure was first made public on Thursday. The database was not overseen by the Chicago Board of Election but instead Election Systems & Software, an Omaha, Neb.-based contractor that provides election equipment and software.

Illinois: Don’t panic, Chicago, but an AWS S3 config blunder exposed 1.8 million voter records | Associated Press

A voting machine supplier for dozens of US states left records on 1.8 million Americans in public view for anyone to download – after misconfiguring its AWS-hosted storage. ES&S says it was notified by UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery of the vulnerable database that contained personal information it collected from recent elections in Chicago, Illinois. The records included voters’ names, addresses, dates of birth, and partial social security numbers. Some of the records also included drivers’ licenses and state ID numbers. “The backup files on the AWS server did not include any ballot information or vote totals and were not in any way connected to Chicago’s voting or tabulation systems,” ES&S said in a statement on Thursday. “These back-up files had no impact on any voters’ registration records and had no impact on the results of any election.”

Illinois: Election Systems & Software Leaks 1.8 Million Chicago Voter Records | Gizmodo

A leading US supplier of voting machines confirmed on Thursday that it exposed the personal information of more than 1.8 million Illinois residents. State authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were alerted this week to a major data leak exposing the names, addresses, dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers, and party affiliations of over a million Chicago residents. Some driver’s license and state ID numbers were also exposed. Jon Hendren, who works for the cyber resilience firm UpGuard, discovered the breach on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) device that was not secured by a password. The voter data was then downloaded by cyber risk analyst Chris Vickery who determined Election Systems & Software (ES&S) controlled the data. ES&S provides voting machines and services in at least 42 states.

Illinois: Seventh Circuit Upholds Same-Day Illinois Voter Registration | Courthouse News

The Seventh Circuit on Friday found no evidence that allowing same-day voter registration in large Illinois counties discriminates against voters in small counties, and vacated a preliminary injunction won by a Republican congressional candidate. Republican Illinois congressional candidate and Tea Party leader Patrick Harlan sued the Illinois State Board of Elections in 2016, claiming a state law guaranteeing same-day registration for high-population counties only benefits urban Democrats. Illinois requires counties with a population of over 100,000 allow citizens to register when voting, but smaller counties don’t have to – and none do because of the cost and logistics involved. Only 20 Illinois counties out of 102 allow same-day registration, but these counties account for 84 percent of the state’s population.

Illinois: Confusion Over Whether Rauner Will Sign Automatic Voter Registration: Sources | NBC

Several sources tell NBC 5 that Gov. Bruce Rauner had planned to sign the new Automatic Voter Registration bill last week during the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Convention, but at the last minute the event was cancelled. The bill allows voters to automatically be registered to vote through an electronic process when applying for a driver’s license or state ID, unless they opt out. Repeated questions to the governor’s communications team have not been answered, but those who support the bill expect him to sign it.

Illinois: State lawmaker concerned about proposed tweak to nursing home voter registration | Illinois News Network

A state representative has some questions about a proposed change to Illinois election law that would allow for more grace-period voter registration at nursing homes. Senate Bill 1479 passed both chambers in May and was sent to the governor last month. It would enhance grace-period voter registration and changes of address for eligible residents at nursing homes. State Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, was the only lawmaker in the House to raise questions before it passed in May. “You can easily have [nursing home residents] double registered and anytime you have somebody double registered you have the propensity for possible fraud to occur,” Ives said. “They should have the same voting rights as everybody else, but they should have no more voting rights than anybody else either.”

Illinois: Board Says Illinois Will Not Turn Over Its Voter Data To fraud commission | Chicagoist

Illinois will not hand over voter roll data as requested by a Trump administration panel, the Board of Elections announced on Thursday, saying that it does not have a publicly available roll. After Trump’s newly created Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity issued a letter asking that states provide voter data—including names, addresses, birth dates, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and voting history, stretching back ten years—the Illinois office was met with an influx of calls urging the Board to deny the request. Kenneth Menzel, General Counsel of the State Board of Elections, wrote in a letter to Kris Kobach, Vice Chair of the PACEI, that the Commission’s stated intention to make public any submitted data prevents the Board from turning it over, per the state’s election-code safeguards.

Illinois: Keeping Elections Safe From Hackers | WTTW

Amid the array of investigations into Russian interference with the 2016 election, the director of the Illinois State Board of Elections testified last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Illinois was the target of a hack that exposed thousands of voters’ names, addresses, birthdays and partial social security numbers. Since the attack was detected, officials have moved to strengthen security around the voter database. But nationwide, concerns about election cybersecurity are on the rise – especially since Illinois was one of at least 21 states that were successfully hacked.

Illinois: Automatic voter registration coming soon to Illinois | WRSP

Automatic voter registration has been a topic in Illinois for months, and it’s something that U.S. Senator Dick Durbin is also working on at a national level. Both the Illinois House and Senate unanimously passed legislation for automatic voter registration. That currently sits on the governor’s desk and has signaled that he will sign.

Illinois: New Automatic Voter Registration Bill Could Expand Voter Participation | CBS

Backers of the new Automatic Voter Registration bill approved by the General Assembly said they cannot wait to see Governor Rauner sign the legislation, and put it into action. Backers believe it will expand voter participation in Illinois. WBBM’s Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports. A spokeswoman for Governor Rauner said he thanks the sponsors and stakeholders who work with his office to craft the final version of this law. Anyone who applies for or updates a driver’s license will automatically be registered to vote unless they say otherwise.

Illinois: Congressman: Russian operatives hacked Illinois elections board | Chicago Tribune

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley said Monday that Russian operatives hacked into the State Board of Elections last year to view voter database files, a potential move toward trying to make voters distrust the state and federal election system. Quigley, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, also warned of a potential “constitutional crisis” over executive privilege between President Donald Trump and the U.S. Supreme Court as part of multiple investigations into possible collusion between agents of the Russian government and Trump’s presidential campaign. Quigley’s declaration of Russian involvement in the hacking of the state elections board marked the first time the country had been definitively identified as behind the attack last year, though it had been widely suspected.

Illinois: Automatic registration might not mean more voters | News Tribune

Voter rolls soon may be growing, but that doesn’t mean more people are going to vote. The Illinois House voted 115-0 this week to approve automatic voter registration for citizens who use state services, such as the driver facilities at the Secretary of State’s offices. It changes registration from “opt-in” to “opt-out.” On Wednesday, the Senate passed the bill 55-0. “The new system assumes they want in,” said David Druker, press secretary for the Secretary of State’s Office, of voters.

Illinois: Election officials: Funding needed for registration bill | Bloomington Pantagraph

Local election officials hope the state will budget enough money to do automatic voter registration properly. “Have they figured out how they’re going to pay for it and implement it? That will be key for its success,” said McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael. “It would be a good thing if it worked perfectly, but we’re awaiting further details on it.” The state House and Senate sent Gov. Bruce Rauner legislation that would automatically add residents to the voter rolls when they visit state offices, including those of the secretary of state, who oversees driver’s licenses and vehicle registration. Residents would be able to opt out at the beginning of the registration process. … Logan County Clerk Sally Turner, however, said, “Most county clerks have resigned to the fact that (automatic voter registration) will be the law, but we are all apprehensive in the way it will occur.”

Illinois: Rauner Will Sign Automatic Voter Registration After Vetoing It Last Year | HuffPost

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) intends to sign legislation supported by both chambers of the Illinois legislature that will automatically register people to vote when they interact with state drivers’ facilities and other state agencies. The decision to sign the legislation marks a big victory for voting rights advocates. Rauner vetoed a similar measure last year. At the time, he said the legislation would “inadvertently open the door to voter fraud and run afoul of federal election law.” But a few changes were apparently enough to convince Rauner to sign on to automatic voter registration, which has already led to considerable gains in the number of registered voters in Oregon, the first state to implement it last year. Illinois would be the ninth state to adopt automatic voter registration, and advocates estimate it could add over 1 million voters to the state’s rolls.

Illinois: Legislature OKs automatic-voter registration | State Journal-Register

A bill that would automatically register Illinoisans to vote when they visit a Secretary of State’s Office passed unanimously in the House of Representatives on Monday. Senate Bill 1933 would allow qualified residents to be registered to vote when they visit driver’s services offices and other state agencies. Residents would have the option to opt out of the registration. Earlier this month, the bill passed without opposition within the Senate.

Illinois: Washington County disputes voter roll allegations | SE Illinois News

Washington County is “NOT in violation” of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, County Clerk Nancy Heseman told the SE Illinois News in an email recently. Heseman was responding to allegations by a Washington-based conservative group known as Judicial Watch, which sent a letter to Illinois accusing 24 counties of being in violation off election laws. The Illinois State Board of Elections has since filed a response to Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, saying the group was wrong. “Since the advent of the statewide voter database in Illinois, the SBE has continuously monitored voter registration levels in various jurisdictions,” the letter said. “You are either working from bad data, or are misunderstanding the data you have.”

Illinois: House expected to amend automatic voter registration bill to address elections board concerns | Illinois News Network

The state House is expected to amend a measure to automatically register people to vote when they interact with a state agency because of concerns shared by the Illinois State Board of Elections. State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said his legislation, Senate Bill 1933, which has been in the works for a couple of years, shows bipartisan solutions are possible. “Democrats and Republicans can work together on an issue that oftentimes just goes right down the partisan hole of the legislature,” Manar said. The bill passed unanimously Friday.

Illinois: Voter Registration Database Hackers Home in on Galesburg Residents | Government Technology

Hackers viewed the information of more than 14,000 Galesburg residents in the state of Illinois’ voter registration database last year — more than any other Illinois location. Staff from the Illinois State Board of Elections provided an update to the Illinois Senate’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity on Thursday, revealing that in last summer’s cyberattack on the state’s database, Galesburg records had been viewed more than those from elsewhere in Illinois. Kyle Thomas, executive director of the board, and Kevin Turner, IT director for the board, said the board sent letters to 14,121 Galesburg residents last fall to notify them that some aspect of their information had been viewed. The hacked information included names, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of social security numbers.

Illinois: Senators advance bipartisan automatic voter registration bill | Chicago Tribune

Senate lawmakers again advanced legislation Friday that could automatically register many Illinoisans to vote, a victory for now for supporters who saw a similar effort last year vetoed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Both Democrats and Republicans voted for the revamped proposal after sponsoring Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, incorporated changes pushed by Rauner — a rare attempt at compromise in a statehouse that’s been marked by years of dysfunction and partisan bickering. “That is without question going to lead to more people, more citizens of our state, regardless of where they live, regardless of party affiliation, participating in our electoral process,” Manar said. “And regardless who wins an election, we all win as citizens of the state of Illinois.”