A Lake County judge gave a publisher of right-leaning websites until Monday at 5 p.m. to remove personal voter information from its sites. As of Tuesday afternoon, it had met the standards of the agreed order.
Included on its 20 websites statewide, Local Government Information Services, Inc., has published a series of stories detailing voters' names, date of birth, home address and whether or not they voted in the 2020 Presidential Election.
The articles are still online but with several changes, now showing birth year instead of birthdate and street name instead of home address. This was permitted by the agreed order between the publisher and the attorney general's office.
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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, at the urging of the state election authority, filed a complaint against the website chain for publishing sensitive information about Illinois voters. His office and Local Government Information Services, Inc. agreed with the order made on May 9.
A spokesperson for the AG office said in an email that opposing counsel told them that their client made the changes to comply with the order and is currently reviewing the matter.
Requests for comment from site operator Brian Timpone, a former statehouse reporter and Illinois House Republican spokesman, were made but to an email and phone number no longer used by him. Timpone later said The State Journal-Register mischaracterized the agreed order.
The site also hold ties with Dan Proft, a conservative radio host and former Republican candidate for Illinois governor. Proft had access to the 2016 voter files from his time serving as chair of the now-defunct Liberty Principles PAC. The belief is the outlet combined the old data with 2020 voter data, but it remains unclear how they obtained the voter data from the most recent presidential election.
A prior analysis from the SJ-R found at least 29,000 Springfield residents have had their personal voter information published this year by The Sangamon Sun, a property of LGIS.
The media group holds a presence online and in print publications throughout Illinois including The Rockford Sun, Peoria Standard, Galesburg Reporter and NW Illinois News.
The court set June 7 as the next scheduled status hearing.
Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Illinois voters' information partially removed by right-wing outlet following judge order
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