* We discussed this yesterday, but a bit of new info has surfaced since then…

In the latest gaffe in the state’s voter rolls, 1,151 Illinois residents were improperly classified as not registered to vote in next week’s primary before officials caught the mistake. […]

A spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections said he doesn’t think anyone who was mistakenly listed as not registered was inappropriately turned away during early voting, which began last week, since anyone not registered to vote has the option to do so on the spot and election judges are trained to tell people about that option.

White’s office could not shed any light on the exact cause of the problem. […]

[Jesse White spokesperson Dave Druker] said the error, which was first reported by WCIA-TV in Downstate Illinois, is not due to a “computer glitch” and could be a clerical error that may have multiple causes.

“Could.” Sigh.

* Hannah Meisel at the Daily Line…

Secretary of State spokesperson Dave Druker told The Daily Line that the error was discovered during regular monitoring of applications records, and said the issue began in January. Druker said the errors likely occurred because people gave officials “conflicting” about whether they wanted to be automatically registered.

In some cases, Druker said a person may have gone to a driver’s services facility twice in an attempt to receive a driver’s license or state ID card with sophisticated security features that requires more documentation to obtain.

“Somebody indicated at one point where they did want to be in [AVR] and at another point said they didn’t,” Druker said. “We review these by hand and gave the applications to the Board of Elections. We’re sorry for any confusion that occurred here.”

Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson Jim Allen told The Daily Line he was unsure of the number of individuals affected within the city of Chicago, but said it was “not a grave concern,” since same-day voter registration is available on both Election Day and during early voting, which began last week.

*** UPDATE *** Press release…

In light of yet another “programming error” related to Illinois’ Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) system, State Representatives Tim Butler (R-Springfield) and Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) are calling for a thorough audit and suspension of the system until problems are resolved. The latest problem with the system while on the Secretary of State’s watch has caused more than 1,100 valid voter registrations to be wrongly coded as opting-out instead of being registered.

“It started with non-citizens being registered, then minors being registered, and now actual citizens of legal voting age not being registered. How much more evidence do we need that AVR has to be put on hold and a thorough audit conducted?” said Rep. Butler. “These exact concerns were expressed back in 2017 during the discussions of instituting an AVR program in our state and these revelations underscore that those concerns were well-founded. With the primary election happening in a week and the presidential election in November, these egregious mistakes have to be corrected before AVR is allowed to continue.”

Butler, Bourne and House Republicans first called for action at the end of January when the first revelation that 574 self-identified non-citizens were mistakenly registered to vote. U.S. Congressman Rodney Davis joined House Republicans in that call and several public hearings have since been held, but no action to put the AVR program on hold has been taken by the Governor or the Democrat led General Assembly. In February, Butler and Bourne filed House Bill 5224 to suspend the AVR program until the problems with the system are corrected. Now, House Resolution 827 has been filed to call for a thorough audit to be conducted by an outside, independent auditor.

“It has been over a month since I first called for suspension of the Automatic Voter Registration system. With the revelation of this latest error within Illinois’ AVR system, it’s past time for lawmakers to take definitive steps to protect the integrity of our elections,” said Rep. Bourne. “The wrongful rejection of 1,152 valid voter registrations is unacceptable, and the latest in a series of problems that warrant the temporary suspension of AVR until all issues are resolved. Access to fair and free elections is a fundamental right, and there should be zero margin for error. The rollout of AVR has been plagued with problems and it’s time for the General Assembly to intervene.”

Besides the most recent revelation about the improperly coded 1,152 valid voter registrations, the Secretary of State’s Office also forwarded the information of some 4,700 16-year-olds through the AVR system to the State Board of Elections for pre-registration. Fortunately, the Board of Elections rejected most of those before they were registered.