A lawsuit seeks to strike down a portion of Illinois' Election Day voter registration law.
Liberty Justice Center in Chicago opposes a law requiring counties with populations of 100-thousand or more to offer Election Day voter registration at all polling places, while not requiring the same in less populated counties.
Liberty senior attorney Jacob Huebert says the law is unconstitutional.
"The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment gives every qualified citizen the right to vote on an equal basis. The Supreme Court has made clear that you can't arbitrarily discriminate against certain voters based on where they live. But, that's exactly what this statute does on its face."
He says one of his clients in the suit is the Crawford County Republican Party.
"Crawford County has about 19,000 residents and won't be offering Election Day registration at its polling places. The Crawford County Republican Party wants to make sure that voters in Crawford County have the same opportunity to vote as people in higher population counties."
Huebert says the law passed in 2014 on a straight party-line vote with democrats voting in favor and republicans in opposition because higher populations tend to favor democrats.
He says the lawsuit calls on the federal court to order the Illinois State Board of Elections to direct election authorities in every county not to provide voter registration at polling places this November.
