Illinois Voter Information At Risk In Interstate Program: Lawmaker

(CBS) -- How safe is your voter information? Some lawmakers say it's not, if Illinois continues to take part in a voter fraud program called Crosscheck.

CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports.

8.5 million Illinois voter records. That's how many were given to Crosscheck, a program run by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, to catch voters registered in multiple states. Some Illinois lawmakers want to make sure those records are never given to Crosscheck again.

State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, is sponsoring the bill, a step he took after crosscheck suffered one security breach after another.

Steve Held is a voter rights activist with Indivisible Chicago, a group that FOI'd thousands of documents about Crosscheck from participating states.

He says breaches include system passwords being exchanged via unsecured emails and voter records being stored in an unsecured server.

Illinois State Board of Elections officials also took their concerns to Crosscheck directly and to state lawmakers by letter.

Despite its purpose of zapping voter fraud, Sen. Raoul and Held believe Crosscheck's inaccuracies may actually keep voters with common names from voting.

Kobach's office could not be reached for comment.

Kobach used to oversee President Trump's now-disbanded commission on election integrity.

Raoul, a candidate for Illinois attorney general, will have a hearing on the issue Tuesday morning.