Illinois State Board of Elections
Illinois agency running elections and voter registration; sued under section 1983 in 2026.
On 31 July 2026 two private plaintiffs filed suit against the board in the Northern District of Illinois, in a case assigned to Judge Franklin Ulyses Valderrama and classified on the court file as a voting rights matter.
Last refreshed: 4 August 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for Illinois State Board of Elections
New voting-rights suit filed in Illinois
US Midterms 2026Background
The Illinois State Board of Elections administers elections and maintains the voter registration system for the state of Illinois. It is constituted on a bipartisan basis, a structure intended to prevent either party controlling election administration outright, and its responsibilities cover voter registration records, candidate filing and the certification of results.
state election boards occupy an awkward constitutional position in the United States. Elections are administered by the states, but federal law and the federal constitution set limits on how they may do it, which makes these bodies the usual defendant when a voter believes a state procedure has infringed a federal right.
On 31 July 2026 the board became the defendant in exactly such an action, brought by two private plaintiffs before Judge Franklin Ulyses Valderrama . Lowdown has not retrieved that complaint and offers no account of what is alleged in it, recording only what the court's own file shows.
