The Secretary of State’s office recently discovered that approximately 5,400 Illinois residents who had sought to register to vote at state DMVs were never added to the voting rolls because of a 2019 computer coding issue related to REAL IDs.
 
The coding error, implemented years ago, was revealed by Giannoulias’ staff as part of its ongoing effort to transform and update the Secretary of State’s office’s outdated technology.
 
No one ineligible to vote applied to register to vote at a DMV. Various electronic protection measures are in place that fully omit the voter registration process for all non-citizen customers. The individuals impacted were all U.S. citizens and state residents who were eligible and qualified to register to vote and cast ballots in Illinois.
 
“Fortunately, we discovered the problem and fixed it so no qualified voter who applied is disenfranchised in the upcoming presidential election,” Giannoulias said. “We have also updated the review process for applicants registering to vote when they get their REAL IDs and added additional safeguards to ensure no errors occur moving forward.”
 
The Secretary of State’s office is working with the Illinois State Board of Elections, which will process the voter registration application data and send it to the local county clerks or city election authorities, who will register the voters before the Nov. 5 general election.
 
Illinois employs an automatic voter registration (AVR) system where unregistered voters who visit DMV facilities can register to vote while conducting a transaction, like renewing their driver’s license or state ID or applying for a REAL ID.
 
The office determined the coding error impacted Illinoisans who chose not to register to vote at the time they applied for a REAL ID, beginning in 2019, but had later opted to sign up to vote when asked during a subsequent visit to the DMV. The coding error prevented those registration applications for those REAL ID holders during their second visit from getting forwarded to the State Board of Elections.

The number of applications that failed to get processed began showing up three years later with 125 applications in 2022; 111 applications in 2023; and the remainder in 2024.
 
The Secretary of State’s office has never received any reports that any of those individuals were prohibited from voting during an election. Illinois law allows for same-day voter registration and offers provisional ballots for individuals who believe they are registered to vote but whose registration cannot be validated at a polling place.
 
The coding changes for the processing of REAL IDs were made in 2019 when the former administration was updating driver’s licenses and ID cards to comply with the federal REAL ID law, which established security standards for the types of identification cards that are accepted for boarding domestic airline flights and accessing certain federal buildings.
 
To check their voter registration status, Illinoisans are encouraged to visit the State Board of Elections website.