Illinois
DOJ seeking Illinois voter data to purge suspected noncitizens, documents suggest
Article Summary
- The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Illinois for access to its complete, unredacted voter registration database.
- Documents filed in federal court suggest the agency wants the information so it can purge the names of suspected noncitizens using a federal database that many have criticized for being inaccurate.
- Similar suits have been filed in 29 other states and Washington, D.C. Judges in six states have granted motions to dismiss the suits. No judge has yet ruled in favor of DOJ’s request.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
SPRINGFIELD — The Trump administration’s lawsuits seeking access to sensitive voter registration data in Illinois and dozens of other states is one part of a broader effort to purge state voter rolls of suspected noncitizens, according to documents filed recently in federal court in Springfield.
Those documents were filed Thursday, April 30, by attorneys representing the Illinois AFL-CIO and other groups that have intervened in the case seeking to prevent the Department of Justice from obtaining the information. They say it proves the agency’s stated reasons for seeking the data — to determine whether Illinois is complying with voter list maintenance requirements — is only a pretext and the agency’s suit against the state should be dismissed.
Read the filing
Several former DOJ attorneys who have worked in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division filed an amicus brief in the case in March, arguing the agency has no statutory authority to seek the information to conduct its own list maintenance program or to identify noncitizens.
The new documents filed Thursday include internal DOJ emails that the attorneys say were made available “in response to a public records request lawsuit.”
One of those was a June 16, 2025, email from Michael Gates, who was then a deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, to his superior, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees that division. In that email, Gates states that the division is seeking access to the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database.
“This will be helpful to us because it will allow us to compare this SAVE database against states’ voter rolls, which we will get directly from states under the (National Voter Registration Act),” Gates wrote.
The next month, on July 28, DOJ sent its first letter to the Illinois State Board of Elections seeking access to Illinois’ complete, unredacted statewide voter registration list, indicating that it was part of DOJ’s efforts to enforce voter list maintenance provisions of NVRA. The letter was signed by Gates. It also bore the name of Maureen Riordan, acting chief of the Voting Section within the Civil Rights Division.
Gates has since left the Justice Department. He is currently a Republican candidate for California attorney general in that state’s upcoming June 2 primary.
SAVE database
The SAVE database was originally set up to help states verify the citizenship and immigration status of people applying for public benefits such as Medicaid and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Some states also use it to verify people’s eligibility to vote.
But the program has also been the target of criticism because of its tendency to misidentify people as noncitizens due to its use of incomplete or inaccurate data.
On April 21, the watchdog groups Common Cause and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed a lawsuit against DOJ in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging the agency wants to use state voter registration lists and the SAVE database to conduct what they call “a sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus that endangers millions of Americans’ fundamental voting and privacy rights.”
A second document filed last week in the Illinois case is a Nov. 18, 2025, email from the acting chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, Eric Neff, that appears to suggest how the agency should conceal its intentions when asked why it is seeking states’ voter registration databases.
“I believe our reply should always be: ‘We will use the data in a manner consistent with Federal law’ and say nothing more,” Neff wrote to fellow DOJ lawyers Jesus Osete and Matt Zandi. He also said of the Help America Vote Act, the Civil Rights Act and NVRA, “none of them require (us) to give the states information about what we are going to do with the data. No judge will have authority to limit us beyond a promise of Federal law compliance.”
Illinois lawsuit
Illinois has refused to hand over an unredacted voter registration list. Instead, it has provided DOJ with electronic copies of partially redacted files that do not include sensitive information such as dates of birth, driver’s license numbers or partial Social Security numbers.
In December, DOJ filed suit in the Central District of Illinois seeking access to the unredacted files. It also filed similar suits in 29 other states and Washington, D.C.
The Illinois AFL-CIO, Common Cause several and other groups have intervened as codefendants in the case.
Attorneys for the state and the intervening parties have filed motions to dismiss the DOJ lawsuit. Judge Colleen Lawless has not yet ruled on the motion. Similar suits have already been dismissed in six other states. No court has yet ruled in favor of DOJ’s request for access to the unredacted voter files.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
Illinois
Illinois Tollway proposing increased tolls in 2027 to fund $26.5 billion in road construction
Illinois drivers might soon have to pay more to drive on the state’s tollways.
The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority has proposed an increase in tolls in 2027. If approved by the board, it would be the state’s first toll hike since 2012.
Anyone who drives in the Chicago area likely jumps on one of the Illinois tollways at some point.
“I try to avoid them, you know what I mean? But if I’ve got to get somewhere, and it’s like 10 minutes quicker, I’ll just take the toll,” said Shomari Dyson.
But that toll could cost Dyson and thousands of drivers who take it an average of 45 cents more per toll for passenger vehicles and 30% more per toll for commercial vehicles starting Jan. 1, 2027, if the Illinois tollway board approves the proposed toll hike, and those paying the tolls aren’t happy
“It’s ridiculous. I’m constantly getting tolls, charges, refills on my bank account when my iPass goes through. So, I can imagine it’s just going to happen more and more often,” Jon Jackson said.
Currently, tolls run as low as 30 cents and as high as $1.50 at various toll plazas.
This proposed hike could place the average toll well over a $1 every time drivers pass through an automatic toll plaza.
“I like to know where my money is going, and then [Interstate] 294 has been under construction for the last 15 years, and that is frustrating,” Frank Faso said.
The tollway said the hike is needed to handle projected repairs for road widening, bridge repair, and new technology. It’s all tied to a 15-year capital improvement program estimated to cost $26.5 billion.
The tollway board also wants automatic inflation-based increases every two years starting in 2029.
“We pay our taxes, man, you know what I’m saying? So all that extra, it’s nonsense,” Dyson said.
“If we’re going to void and not take part in things like the World Cup and Soldier Field that’s going to bring tax revenue to the state, they shouldn’t charge me for it,” Faso said.
The board must hold a dozen meetings in various counties to get the public’s take before voting on the toll hike. The first one kicks off in August, but drivers question if the public hearings are really about input.
“I think they’re just going to keep going through the motions,” Jackson said.
Illinois
Illinois has already broken the record for number of tornadoes in a year — and it’s only June
Illinois has seen more tornadoes in 2026 than in any year on record.
Following several more tornadoes confirmed this week across the state, Illinois has recorded 143 tornadoes so far in 2026, beating the previous record of 142 tornadoes set in 2024. With reliable records dating back to 1950, Illinois averages just 54 tornadoes per year. But in recent years, the state has experienced many more:
- 2023: 121
- 2024: 142
- 2025: 126
- 2026: 143 and counting
Unlike 2024, when a record two-day tornado outbreak accounted for a large share of the year’s tornadoes, the activity in 2026 has been spread out across several months.
On Thursday, June 11, a tornado outbreak brought at least 21 confirmed tornadoes to northern Illinois and northwest Indiana, 13 of them in Illinois. Two tornadoes that day — in Streator, Illinois, and Hebron, Indiana — reached rare EF-3 intensity, with winds over 135 miles per hour. Numerous injuries were reported from the storms, but there were no fatalities.
Confirmed tornadoes from June 11:
- Long Point to Streator, IL: EF-3
- Wenona/Osage Township, IL: EF-1
- Graymont to Dwight, IL: EF-1
- Lee, IL: EF-U
- Harpster to Elliott, IL: EF-0
- Pembroke Township (Leesville), IL: EF-U
- St. John to Schererville, IN: EF-0
- Paxton/Loda, IL: EF-1
- Merrillville to Hobart, IN: EF-2
- Ludlow, IL: EF-1
- Cedar Lake, IN: EF-0
- Schneider to Hebron, IN: EF-0
- Watseka, IL: EF-0
- Hebron to Kouts, IN: EF-3
- Wellington/Prairie Green Township, IL: EF-1
- Bartlett, IL: EF-1
- Boswell to Atkinson, IN: EF-1
- Ade to Mount Ayr, IN: EF-0
- Naperville to Lisle, IL: EF-0
- Hickory Hills to Garfield Ridge: EF-2
- Morocco, IN: EF-0
Though most of the Chicago area dodged severe weather from storms this week, the National Weather Service confirmed a brief tornado touchdown Wednesday night in Lake County near Grayslake. The EF-0 tornado had estimated winds of 80 miles per hour and was on the ground for about a quarter-mile. Damage consisted of several downed or split trees and sporadic minor roof damage along a narrow corridor in the Saddlebrook Farms subdivision.
Four more tornadoes were confirmed Wednesday in western and central Illinois. NWS crews are still surveying damage in central Illinois, and more tornadoes may be added to the count in the coming days.
With 143 tornadoes so far this year, Illinois leads the nation in tornado count for the third time in the last four years — a remarkable statistic for a state not typically thought of as being in Tornado Alley.
The recent increase in tornado activity across Illinois and the Midwest fits research showing a shift in tornado-favorable environments away from parts of the traditional Plains Tornado Alley and farther east into the Midwest and South. Climate change is one likely factor, as warming temperatures are expected to make the Plains hotter and drier overall, shifting tornado ingredients eastward toward the Mississippi River.
A person was fatally hit by a Metra train in Palatine, Illinois, early Friday morning.
Around 5:10 a.m., Metra said Union Pacific Northwest train No. 602 hit a pedestrian at Baldwin Road and Northwest Highway.
Metra confirmed the person died at the scene. The victim has not been identified.
Metra said train service on the Union Pacific Northwest line is suspended.
This is a developing story. CBS News Chicago will continue to provide updates.
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