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Madison County investigating suspicious mail-in ballots as FOIAs inundate clerk’s office

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Illinois

Officials in Madison County have confirmed a criminal investigation is underway after election judges noticed similar handwriting on roughly 39 mail-in ballots during the Illinois primary election.

Madison County Clerk Debbie Ming-Mendoza, a Democrat, confirmed her office detected the suspicious mail-in ballots during the June 28 primary election and promptly reported the case to the authorities. She said sheriff’s deputies interviewed suspects and took witness statements. […]

So far, no one has been charged in the case, and Haine’s petition to recommend a special prosecutor remains under seal. […]

Mendoza said the mail-in ballots in question were all cast in the Democratic primary. At this time, there is no available evidence that would suggest the ballots in question might have altered the outcome of any election results.

* The investigation coincides with heightened scrutiny surrounding ‘election integrity.” Clerk Ming-Mendoza issued a statement regarding FOIA requests that bog down her office…

With the November 8 General Election approaching and early voting just a month away, Madison County Clerk’s Office says it has been inundated with FOIA requests for voting records. Madison County Clerk, Debbie Ming-Mendoza, is issuing this statement to the public with information regarding access to voting records. […]

“To track who votes for who or what and provide that information to another party is a real invasion of a person’s privacy,” said Mendoza. “I believe residents want their vote to be confidential and not reviewed,” she continued. ES&S, the vendor which provides technical voting support to the Madison County Clerk’s office, contacted Mendoza and confirmed that the voting machines used in Madison County do not provide the type of records the recent FOIA requests have demanded.

Similar FOIA requests have been filed all over the state of Illinois. Mendoza cited that the cyber security exemptions provision applies to the FOIA law to protect the voting process from individuals attempting to access confidential voting information. Mendoza has complied with all state Freedom of Information (FOIA) policies as Madison County Clerk and will continue to provide information for rationale FOIA requests to the public.

Mendoza assures the public that when they cast their ballot this fall it will be secure and accurately counted.

* ABC reports election denier FOIA requests inconvenience election preparations…

With ten weeks to go until the 2022 midterms, dozens of state and local officials across the country tell ABC News that preparations for the election are being hampered by onerous public information requests, ongoing threats against election workers, and dangerous misinformation campaigns being waged by activists still intent on contesting the 2020 presidential election.

The efforts, many of which are being coordinated at both the national and local level, range from confronting election officials at local government meetings to training volunteers to challenge the vote-counting process on Election Day, according to election officials. […]

Election officials said that records requests, which are designed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to make the vote-tallying process transparent to the public, have increasingly been used by election deniers to disrupt the system.

At the “Moment of Truth Summit,” a two-day meeting of election deniers hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell last week in Springfield, Missouri, activists instructed attendees on how to request election-related records, and pointed them to templates to make it easier to submit the forms.

posted by Isabel Miller
Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 10:27 am

Comments

I’m sympathetic to the burden of trying to reply to FOIA requests in good faith, but this situation seems like the purpose of the “voluminous request” and “recurrent requester” exceptions. The Public Access Counselor should be giving the clerks as much cover as legally possible. Otherwise this type of FOIA DDoS attack will be available to paralyze small governments all over the state.

Comment by vern Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 10:42 am
Years ago, during events that caused higher FOIA requests than normal, my favorite tactic is to just put in a FOIA request for all FOIA requests and responses that were made over a certain timeframe. Then I’d publish all of them online myself

This usually forces the agency to put all that stuff online themselves, which is a good thing as it reduces additional requests and effort for similar info.

Lots of info is returned and made available, with very little work for the agency since all the info is already there from the initial request.

There’s also probably a gold mine of crazy in some of these Madison county requests.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 10:45 am
I like the synchronicity of starting this post with “officials are investigating suspiciously similar writing on ballots” and ending with “activists are providing templates for spamming mass FOIA requests”

Comment by 48th Ward Heel Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 10:52 am
Madison County Clerk Debbie Ming-Mendoza’s opponent is a proponent of the Big Lie of the 2020 elections and QAnon. I can’t help but think some of these FOIA requests are from her opponent’s camp. Sadly, there isn’t much of a Democratic Party left in Madison County to help her fight back. I can’t imagine what will happen if someone like Linda Andreas is running our elections in the future.

Comment by Highland IL Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 10:55 am
The goal of these exercises is to give the phony appearance to be engaged in the process, but what the Trumpkins want is to disrupt the fair and free elections in hopes that it weakens the resolve that we know we are not a 3rd world country needing Jimmy Carter to oversee process.

Disrupt the process, hope that a fair and free election is questioned.

Awful.

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 10:58 am
The MAGA right is trying to take over what little part of Madison County it doesn’t already control. Not sure if my one vote can stop them.

Comment by Furtive Look Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 11:36 am
Jimmy Carter is one of our finest former Presidents. He is an example of how to do the job.

Comment by Jerry Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 11:38 am
vern @ 10:42 am +1

I see this situation as a win.

We’re seeing how the election process is supposed to work. Election authorities identified suspected fraudulent activity and referred it for investigation. The investigation is also being conducted by a special prosecutor.

While MAGA GOP states use the big lie of massive election process fraud as an excuse for voter suppression laws, Illinois commits to democracy by making voting easier.

Comment by Norseman Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 11:41 am
Smells tricky.

Comment by Dotnonymous Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 11:43 am
I have worried for several years that a coordinated series of FOIA requests submitted by a flash mob of people, any one request not burdensome but collectively they are, could cripple state and local agencies.

Comment by thechampaignlife Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 11:50 am
Seems like a request to know who voted for which offices or issues could be handled by a simple form letter that begins with, “Bless your heart…” That would seem to be An attempt to identify individual vote choices which should be responded to with pound sand. Choosing not to vote in a race is a vote choice.

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 12:06 pm
I would not be surprised if the FOIA requests were affiliated with Awake Illinois. I have seen chatter on Facebook about using FOIA requests to demand answers to conspiracy questions.

Comment by H-W Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 12:16 pm
Nice catch by the election judges; that must have been an “OH (expletive and punctuation deleted)” when they found that, knowing what would come next.

As to FOIA, yes the burdensome requester limitation should be carefully reviewed, as well as PAC rulings to make sure these attempts to slow down election agenceis are properly handled.

Comment by thisjustinagain Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 12:27 pm
–purpose of the “voluminous request” and “recurrent requester” exceptions–

I’d wager many of them can be stopped even before that.

“We do not maintain that record.”

FOIA doesn’t require agencies to create data they don’t already have. Say you ask for a spreadsheet with only the fields you request. That would require the creation of new documents not already in possession of the agency, and can be denied.

That’s one of the easiest exception to use because most people don’t know how to properly word their requests. Anything not caught there can probably fall under any of the bazillion, and growing, exceptions in section 7.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 12:41 pm
=but this situation seems like the purpose of the “voluminous request” and “recurrent requester” exceptions. The Public Access Counselor should be giving the clerks as much cover as legally possible.=

You are a good kid and I love your optimism . Unfortunately the PAC gives way to much creedence and energy to FOIA abusers.

The threshold for “recurrent requester” is obscene and time wasting. The ILGA does not care since they are not subject to FOIA, if they were this law would be changed dramatically.

=I have seen chatter on Facebook about using FOIA requests to demand answers to conspiracy questions.=

And that is the problem, FOIA is very specific to existing documents. Yet most of the requests I receive seek answers to questions or seek things that do not exist, the other frequent request is to format the response a certain way.

None of those are covered by FOIA and you do not have to reformat or create a document in response to FOIA.People get mad because when we deny their FOIA’s because they are questions. Questions they could get answered if the just called.

Comment by JS Mill Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 12:53 pm
@TheInvisibleMan

Not according to the Courts. Check out Hites v. Waubonsee Community College (2016IL App (2d) 150836) where the Court held that the existence of data in a database renders that data a public record, meaning that the public body must produce the data. In Waubonsee’s case, they had to pay a programmer to develop a query to generate a report.

A no records responsive letter just bought you someone elses legal fees and potentially a bad faith penalty between 5 and 10k.

Comment by Just Another Anon Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 1:38 pm
Small Correction, the bad faith penalty is $2,500 to 5,000 with an additional 1k per day for failure to comply with a court turnover order. My recollection as the bill increasing the penalty passed, must not have made it through.

Comment by Just Another Anon Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 1:42 pm
=A no records responsive letter just bought you someone elses legal fees and potentially a bad faith penalty between 5 and 10k.=

You are only correct if a record exists and you do not produce it. You do not have to create a record if it does not exists and you do not have to change the format.

The court case you cited is not evidence that @TheInvisibleMan is wrong. He stated-

“FOIA doesn’t require agencies to create data they don’t already have. Say you ask for a spreadsheet with only the fields you request. That would require the creation of new documents not already in possession of the agency, and can be denied.”

He is correct. FOIA responses are very literal. If they requester is asking for only certain information you can respond with the “no documents responsive to your request”. You have to look for something that matches the request exactly.

I have been through the appeals process and prevailed.

Comment by JS Mill Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 1:54 pm
Everyone complaining about FOIAs - IL agencies have great FOIA officers to handle queries full time because doing so creates government jobs.

Comment by Bolingbrook party of 7 Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 2:01 pm
===doing so creates government jobs.===

Pesky laws, openness, and accountability… lol

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 2:03 pm
Lawyers , plaintiff that I’d love Madison county

Comment by Curious George Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 2:23 pm
JS Mill-

I don’t disagree with you, I probably just didn’t say what I meant pointedly enough. “Kwame should do whatever it takes to get the PAC on wartime footing so they can provide some cavalry for county clerks” would be another way of saying it.

I’ll let my folks know I’m a good kid though, it’ll give them quite a shock

Comment by vern Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 2:28 pm
@JS Mill
I find that difficult to believe considering I have had the exact opposite experience with some of my clients matters before the PAC. If you have the data I ask for (say all the registered voters in the district and the elections they voted in for the past 10 years) then the PAC has quoted Hites paragraph 72, which reads, in pertinent part, “a request to search and produce data stored in a database is not a request to generate a new record.”

Now, the Election Code authorizes the Clerk to use an electronic voter registration system. It requires the collection of certain information and is required to have space to mark the voting record of the registrant. My understanding is that Madison County uses “Poll Pads” to log in its voters and a ballot on demand system to issue its ballots (it prints the voters ballot automatically when they check in). I haven’t voted in Mad Co, so I don’t have first hand knowledge. Ballot on demand indicates to me that they have an electronic record of who voted in what election (at least since they got that system). I would be shocked if they didn’t have a combined registration database, as it frankly makes sense to do it from an operations perspective. The election code further requires that the registration information be complied and transmitted to the State Board of Elections.

So, the question isn’t if this data exists, it clearly does. Its not enough to say that you don’t have a spreadsheet with x columns. You need to be able to say, I don’t have that data, period. Saying you don’t have it in the format requested doesn’t get you anywhere either. Section 6(a) of FOIA requires that where you don’t have it in the format requested (say an excel spreadsheet with x number of columns) you are required to provide the data in the format it is kept or paper (at the election of the requestor).

So, Hites does say what I referenced. Invisible Man misapprehends the request. If I ask for voting records in Excel format, you can’t say I don’t have that record because I keep mine in Google Sheets. Similarly, if the request seeks “A spreadsheet of all people who voted, their name, address, a voting record for the past 6 years”, I don’t think the response of “Its a database, not a spreadsheet so no records responsive.” makes it across the line.

Comment by Just Another Anon Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 2:51 pm
” inundated … the vendor which provides technical voting support to the Madison County Clerk’s office, contacted Mendoza and confirmed that the voting machines used in Madison County do not provide the type of records”

They should have a standard “we have no responsive documents” type reply - S/B quickly dealt with.

Comment by Donnie Elgin Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 2:58 pm
Its appears I confused what the requestors were seeking. Having reviewed the substance of the requests, namely that they don’t want “voting records”. Which to me means records of who voted, not who specific votes voted for, but rather specifics as to who John Q. Public voted for, I’m now certain those records don’t exist. That said, if its “voting records” such as which primary they voted in, and when a specific voter voted, those clearly do.

Comment by Just Another Anon Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 3:07 pm
–If I ask for voting records in Excel format, you can’t say I don’t have that record because I keep mine in Google Sheets. –

That’s not what I’m saying at all.

I’m saying if you ask for a spreadsheet with specific columns in it, and those columns only, the request will be denied because that document doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter if your spreadsheet is in excel or google.

The specificity and defined limitations of the required fields in my example request is why it is able to be denied.

A successful FOIA for large data sets is a balancing act between being just vague enough to get the records you want, if it exists, and just specific enough to not be classified as voluminous.

If you are okay with paying the fees and extended timelines of being voluminous, you can simply request any document that *contains* the data you are looking for and collate it yourself after the fact. I’ve done that with success as well.

You can also try to just call and ask the people who work there without a FOIA. Once you invoke FOIA you legally also set timelines that you or the agency can’t easily control. If you just have a conversation with whatever office and aren’t abrasive, you can usually get what you are looking for.

Ideally, FOIA requests should be a last resort after an agency doesn’t cooperate with more casual requests.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Friday, Sep 2, 22 @ 4:07 pm