Candidates

ICU/IEIP has created a helpful Election Integrity Packet for candidates, their campaign teams and their supporters. You can download the complete packet here. Feel free to contact us with any questions, or if we can assist in any way.

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for stepping forward to run for office. We realize that running a campaign is challenging and expensive. It is also a sacrifice for you and your family. The calling to become a public servant, in service to We the People, must be carefully weighed and measured, and few are willing to answer that call.

Our organization has become known in Illinois throughout the years as having expertise in election process and infrastructure. Through our Illinois Election Integrity Program and our statewide coalition, we have worked to bring transparency, honesty and fairness to Illinois elections. We hope this is an encouragement to you as you run for office. ICU/IEIP does serious, substantive work to help ensure honest elections. 

A small sampling of our work to date…

  • Together with Judicial Watch, we sued the IL State Board of Elections and won citizen watchdog access to IL voter rolls.
  • Again, working with Judicial Watch, Illinois Family Action, and Breakthrough Ideas, we have sued the IL State Board of Elections: obey Federal law and clean inactive voters off the voter rolls. In Federal court now. This could result in as many as 800,000 ineligible and inactive voters coming off Illinois voter rolls.
  • Voter List Maintenance Working Group: our statewide network of volunteers are validating and verifying the voter rolls. 
  • Vulnerable Voter Working Group: helping to safeguard the voting rights of residents of senior care facilities and group homes.
  • Legislative Working Group: our statewide network of volunteers helped to defeat three Ranked Choice Voting bills last year in Springfield. We continually monitor election legislation and issue Action Alerts.
  • Trained over 4,000 IL activists on how to protect the vote.
  • Established a statewide Election Integrity Coalition: www.ieip.org
  • Worked with Cleta Mitchell and the founders of the Virginia Coalition/Virginia Model to establish the national Election Integrity Network: https://whoscounting.us
  • Online training for Election Judges (supplemental to their training from their local Election Authority), Poll Watchers (this training is in the process of being updated for this election cycle) and other aspects of election integrity.
  • Researched and vetted tools and apps which can help fulfill the election integrity goal of “Eyes on Every Ballot” (for example, see the “VotifyNow” flier in this packet).

What can you and your campaign team do to help election integrity efforts in Illinois? We have some great suggestions and tools, but they won’t make a difference if we don’t all use them. 

Here are some helpful things that you can do:

  • Appoint someone on your campaign team to be your Election Integrity expert
  • Ask that person (or several) to join our IEIP Statewide Coalition Zoom meetings every Thursday @7:30PM (see enclosed brochure, “Your Country Needs You” and the enclosed Election Integrity Working Groups flier for details). These meetings keep everyone updated on the latest tips, strategies and techniques.
  • At every campaign event RECRUIT Election Judges and Poll Watchers. Election Judges are especially important, because they have legal power in the voting process.
  • Encourage those Election Judges and Poll Watchers to take advantage of our FREE on-line trainings.
  • Remember that as a candidate, you can legally credential Poll Watchers to serve in the locations in which your name appears on the ballots (contact us for details)
  • At every campaign event encourage attendees and supporters to download and use the FREE “VotifyNow” app (see enclosed flier). This app will allow us all together to fulfill the election integrity goal of “Eyes on Every Ballot”. It’s a way to crowd-source election integrity. Data gathered in the 2022 election in Arizona with the VotifyNow app is now being used in both the Kari Lake and Abraham Hamadeh election court cases in Arizona.
  • Copy and share our “Top 10 Action Items for Honest Elections” flier (enclosed)
  • Encourage voters to follow our “Claim Your Name, Secure Your Vote” strategy, which compliments the IL GOP “Bank Your Vote” program. This strategy is detailed on the “Top 10” flier.
  • If you send any campaign mailings, DO NOT DISCARD any mail which is returned to you as “undeliverable”. Scan or take a photo of the mailing address and send it to us. We will submit it to our Voter List Maintenance Working Group to investigate whether or not that voter should be removed from the rolls.
  • As you and your volunteers canvass your district and speak to voters, make note of any voters on your lists who have moved or are deceased, and submit that info to us for the VLM Working Group. A helpful tool to report the important details is our ICU Incident Report Form, available for download on our website (https://www.ieip.org/icu-ieip-incident-report/). This report helps to capture critical details right away, while fresh in your mind. It also saves someone from having to revisit the address for more information. 
  • The ICU Incident Report Form can also be helpful as you and your team submit incident reports using the VotifyNow app.
  • When comes to ensuring transparent, fair and honest elections, no one person or organization can do it all. But together we can do a lot. Don’t count on someone else to do it for you. As a candidate, you are heavily invested in the success of your campaign – you have “skin in the game”. Help to make sure that every ballot upon which YOUR name appears is counted fairly and accurately.

We are here to support your election integrity efforts. Let’s work together to ensure honest elections in Illinois. United we stand, divided we fall.

Sincerely,

The Illinois Election Integrity Program Coalition