Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

County clerks being “inundated” with voting-related FOIA requests here

Thursday, Sep 28, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller

In North Carolina, Local Labs wanted obscure voter records that would take weeks, or even months, to prepare. In Georgia, the company requested a copy of every envelope voters used to mail in their ballots. And in dozens of counties across the U.S., Local Labs asked for the address of every midterm voter.

Local election offices across the country are struggling to manage a sharp rise in the number of public records requests, and extensive requests coming from Local Labs in at least five states have stymied election officials, according to a Votebeat review of hundreds of records requests, as well as interviews. The requests are broad and unclear, and the purpose for obtaining the records is often not fully explained, leaving officials wondering in some cases whether they can legally release the records.

Local Labs is known for a massive network of websites that rely mainly on aggregation and automation, blasting out conservative-leaning hyper-local news under names such as the Old North News, in North Carolina, and Peach Tree Times, in Georgia.

Local Labs CEO Brian Timpone told Votebeat the company is using records requests in an attempt to expose election fraud that he is sure exists. The company is sometimes getting paid by GOP-backed clients to do so, Timpone acknowledged, characterizing the work simultaneously as both political research and journalism.

Ugh.

* I reached out to Matt Dietrich at the Illinois State Board of Elections to ask if this was happening here as well…

Illinois election authorities have received many if not all of the same records requests named in that article.

These kinds of requests and others – along with the more general theme of combating election disinformation — were the impetus behind a series of press conferences many central Illinois county clerks and election officials held on Tuesday and Wednesday. John Ackerman, clerk of Tazewell County, organized this and would be a good person to contact if you want some detail on the issue of these kinds of FOIA requests causing work flow problems for local election authorities:

* I wasn’t able to reach Ackerman (I’ll let you know if he calls me back), but a Capitol News Illinois story on the press conferences didn’t mention the FOIA issue. Neither did WCIA, WEEK and the Pantagraph.

So, I watched the press conference online.

* Ackerman told reporters that clerks were being “inundated” with FOIAs (although he said they have tapered off somewhat lately). “It’s the exact same message from the exact same person,” Ackerman said, without identifying the person. Clerks are being asked for “items we don’t have here in Illinois. They’re asking for data and for log books that don’t exist because they’ve gotten the information from out of state sources rather than sources within the state.”

“I do feel sorry for some of my smaller counties,” Ackerman said. “I have staff that can help get that stuff prepared.” Many of the smaller counties, he said, only have one or two employees handling the inquiries. “That’s really taking a huge amount of their time to answer the same amount of questions as a larger county.”

…Adding… I was able to connect with Clerk Ackerman, who told me he hasn’t received any FOIA requests that he knows of from Timpone’s Local Labs. Most all of the FOIA requests were anonymous, he said, so he couldn’t rule it out. His office did receive a request for early voting envelopes, which was denied for being overly broad.

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*** UPDATED x3 *** Pritzker says he’s ‘expressed concerns’ about the city’s proposed migrant tent camps: ‘I don’t think this is the only option’

Thursday, Sep 28, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Gov. Pritzker was asked today about Chicago’s highly controversial contract with GardaWorld to house large numbers of asylum seekers in tents over the winter…

I’ve expressed my concerns about it and we continue to have conversations about it. I think it’s something that the city, with a lack of existing buildings to put people in, I know the city has looked at this as one of its options, but I don’t think this is the only option.

And again, we’re attempting to identify other facilities that are already built where we could house migrants. [cross talk] If we have existing facilities, we ought to use all of those that are willing to do it. Including, by the way if there are federal opportunities to do that, great. There are federal buildings that don’t have anybody in them, we haven’t identified any yet and the federal government hasn’t yet, but we’ve asked them even if, you know, even if it’s something that’s a bit inconvenient for the federal government, they need to step up to the plate and I’ve said that repeatedly to the Department of Homeland Security.

Please pardon all transcription errors.

The state has a contract with GardaWorld that the city is piggy-backing on. Pritzker told reporters today that the state has “not yet used that contract.”

* Pritzker was also asked about his conversations with people in the federal government about what he wants them to do…

Well, they have the ability to help us and they’ve offered to help and so we’re going to accept whatever it is that they can offer. I will say that it’s not just about money, though. Frankly, we do need reimbursement for the dollars that have already been put forward because we’ve done an awful lot already without a lot of help from the federal government. [crosstalk] It’s not just about money, right? It is also about making sure that we get personnel from the federal government. Because this process. and you can see a little bit of it in New York, we’re doing it here in Chicago and organizing it. It involves immigration attorneys. It involves filing paperwork for people that haven’t already filed paperwork. It involves making sure that we’re identifying peoples’ skills and the jobs that they can fulfill when they get the work authorizations. So there’s a lot that the federal government can help us with along the way. We’re doing it on our own now, but we’ve asked, I have asked the Department [crosstalk] and the Department of Homeland Security and the White House have both heard from me on this subject.

* One press conference attendee asked why the state wasn’t opening up McCormick Place East (Lakeside Center) to the migrants like was done during the pandemic.

What a bizarre question. McCormick Place was shut down during the pandemic. Nobody was going to conventions back then, so they had plenty of room. If you click here, you’ll see that McCormick Place Lakeside Center has several scheduled events.

*** UPDATE 1*** Chicago Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa sent me a text in response…

In addition to opening and operating their own state migrant shelters, New York state reimburses NYC for a third to half of all their migrant-related expenses, we wish we were getting that level of support in Chicago. Would help tremendously.

His tweet was more blunt…

This is particularly ludicrous coming from JB given that lack of meaningful support from the State of Illinois has pushed the city in this direction.

New York state has opened multiple migrant shelters. The State of Illinois operates ZERO shelters. ZERO. Open some shelters JB! https://t.co/HTHQDN7JAR

— Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (@CDRosa) September 28, 2023

*** UPDATE 2 *** Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh called to say “We have offered to open shelters,” going back to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s tenure. Neither Lightfoot nor Mayor Johnson have taken the state up on the offer, she said, adding that the state has already provided $328 million in state funds.