May 10th 2024.
A judge in Lake County has issued an order to a company that publishes far-right websites and flyers resembling newspapers. The company has been given until Monday at 5 p.m. to remove certain personally identifiable information of voters that was posted publicly earlier this year, in violation of state law.
The order came about after a complaint from Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul. The so-called "pink slime" publications, as they are commonly known, must now remove registered voters' full birthdates and street addresses from their websites. This is in line with the state's publicly released voting information, as required by federal law.
The publishers of these publications, known as Local Government Information Services (LGIS), have also been banned from posting any additional voter lists that include full birthdates and street addresses until a hearing on June 7th. This order was agreed upon by both parties and issued by Lake County Associate Circuit Judge Daniel Jasica.
LGIS operates flyers and websites throughout Illinois with names that make them seem like legitimate newspapers, such as the "Chicago City Wire" and "Will County Gazette". However, their content is often low-quality and disguised as news, with a clear bias towards far-right political candidates and their agendas. This has earned them the nickname "pink slime".
The company is run by Brian Timpone, a former spokesperson for the Illinois House Republicans. He has launched numerous "pink slime" publications in Illinois and other states, and is a business partner and ally of Dan Proft, a failed Republican candidate for governor and right-wing radio host based in Florida.
The Illinois State Board of Elections received numerous complaints after LGIS posted the names, addresses, and birthdates of voters by precinct, along with their voting history. This information is only supposed to be used by political organizations and is not to be shared with outside groups. Proft's political committee, Liberty Principles, had paid LGIS to print and distribute stories in favor of their candidates in 2016. This led to the State Board of Elections requiring the publications to disclose that the content was paid for by Liberty Principles. However, the committee shut down at the end of 2019 and it is unclear if their newer committee, People Who Play By The Rules, was the source of the 2020 voting list information.
People Who Play By The Rules has recently made headlines for other reasons, including owing fines to the state for not timely filing campaign finance documents and an ongoing election board review into whether they illegally coordinated with Darren Bailey, a 2022 Republican candidate for governor, during the election.
In their complaint against LGIS for publishing voters' personal information, Raoul's office argued that this put voters at risk of identity theft and threatened the safety of certain groups, such as members of the judiciary and law enforcement. They also noted that LGIS had ignored previous requests from the election board to remove the information from their websites.
Since the beginning of the year, LGIS has published thousands of articles on their websites, each containing a list of registered voters in a specific precinct, along with their birthdates and full street addresses, and whether they voted in the 2020 election. For example, there are approximately 408 articles with this information for various voting precincts in Lake County on the "Lake County Gazette" website. These lists include prominent state officials, current and former members of the judiciary, and law enforcement officers, as well as potential victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.
Raoul's office warned that the potential harm to voters, including identity theft and physical harm, would be irreparable if this information was not removed. They also stated that LGIS had been uncooperative with requests to take down the data, despite being aware of the potential consequences.
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