Articles by Capitol News Illinois

With early in-person and mail-in voting now underway in Illinois, state and local election officials insisted Friday that the state’s voting system is being run fairly and accurately.

Illinois election officials this week claimed the state’s voter registration rolls are accurate and they detailed multiple safeguards designed to prevent non-U.S. citizens from registering or voting. The comments come as the U.S. Department of Justice sues Illinois for access to the state’s voter database and presses states nationwide to strengthen voter roll maintenance.

Gov. JB Pritzker said this week he has not seen video of an Illinois State Police trooper fatally shooting a woman in January — although he called the woman a “victim.” By contrast, the governor has said he watched video of a federal immigration officer fatally shooting a woman in Minneapolis in January “frame by frame.”

After one House Democrat was indicted this week and another resigned amid an ethics investigation last week, House Republicans are calling for transparency and accountability.

A new law taking effect tomorrow raises the age at which Illinois drivers must pass a road test to renew their license from 79 to 87.

While hundreds of bills are heading to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk, several key measures debated during this spring’s legislative session failed to move forward and will be put off to future months or years. Among those that failed to pass is one that would ban the sale of Glock handguns, which can be easily modified into machine guns.

Nearly 400 bills cleared both chambers of the General Assembly this session, with more than 150 of them moving in the session’s final week. Among the bills awaiting Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature is legislation that would significantly increase compensation for people wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in the state.

Families of Illinois prison inmates and legal advocates spoke out this week against a new program at the Illinois Department of Corrections that restricts incarcerated people’s access to incoming mail and in some cases only allows them to see electronically scanned images of letters and other correspondence.