10/15/2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2026
COOK COUNTY GOP DEPUTY CHAIR SEEKS INDEPENDENT REVIEW AFTER CLERK BARRED, THEN ADMITTED, POLLWATCHERS AT SCHOOL VOTING SITES
Late disclosures, a reversal only after a lawyer’s phone call and closed sites raise questions about Clerk Monica Gordon’s student early-voting program
GLENVIEW, Ill. — T.J. Brown, Northfield Township Republican Committeeman and Deputy Chairman of the Cook County Republican Party, today called for an independent investigation into Cook County Clerk Monica Gordon’s administration of the student early-voting program. He cited weeks of unanswered requests for basic information, an attempt to exclude Republican pollwatchers and a school list that arrived after voting at some locations had already ended.
“Introducing students to voting should be an example of transparent, accountable government,” Brown said. “Instead, we spent weeks chasing basic information, were told our pollwatchers could not attend, and received a school list after voting at some locations was already over. Monica Gordon owes the public an explanation.”
Cook County Chairman Terry Carr also noted the Clerk’s Office’s poor communication of the program.
“I am all for the high school early voting program,” Carr said. “It’s a great idea, but the transparency and ex*****on need to improve a great deal moving forward.”
Ahead of the March primary, Republican county and township leaders received one day’s notice of the program. The clerk’s office said the program would expand for the general election, but it did not answer later requests for participating schools, dates and locations.
“I made repeated calls and was told only one person had the details,” Brown said. “The clerk’s office was organizing an election program but would not give us the information necessary to observe it.”
This week’s sequence:
• Tuesday, Oct. 13: Republicans learned from word of mouth and school district social media that student voting would take place Thursday. Late Tuesday, the clerk’s office said participating schools would match those used in the primary, and Republicans began assigning pollwatchers on that basis.
• Wednesday, Oct. 14: The clerk’s office told Republicans that pollwatchers would not be allowed inside the schools. The office reversed that position only after receiving a phone call from Illinois Republican Party counsel. The office then demanded pollwatcher names and addresses within hours.
• After the reversal: Republicans received a school list that included locations not used in the primary. Some of the participating schools, including Barrington High School (located in Lake County), had already finished voting Wednesday, a day earlier than Republicans had been told, with no Republican pollwatchers present.
“Pollwatching is a safeguard established by law,” Brown said. “It should not take a lawyer’s phone call to secure access, and access means little when the information needed to exercise it arrives after the polls close.”
Illinois law, 10 ILCS 5/19A-60, provides for credentialed pollwatchers at permanent and temporary early-voting locations. Under 10 ILCS 5/19A-10(a), early-voting sites must be open to any voter eligible to vote there. The school sites, however, were limited to students and staff.
Communications between Illinois Republican Party counsel and the clerk’s counsel confirmed that High School District 214 participated in the program while every neighboring district within the clerk’s jurisdiction did not, including Districts 211, 225 (Glenbrook), 207 (Maine Township) and 212 (Leyden). District 214 also has a $295 million bond referendum on the November ballot.
“I’m not alleging a motive. But placing polling sites in the one district asking voters for $295 million, while skipping every neighboring district the clerk oversees, is a terrible appearance,” Brown said. “The clerk should disclose which districts were invited, which declined and what criteria decided participation.”
Brown called for an investigation into:
• Public notice: When each school, date and schedule was finalized, and when political parties were told.
• Pollwatcher access: Who ordered pollwatchers excluded, on what legal authority, and which sites finished voting before observers could be arranged.
• Voter access: The legal basis for limiting early-voting sites to students and staff instead of all eligible voters.
• School selection: The invitations, criteria and communications behind participation, including whether neighboring election authorities were consulted for schools like Barrington that serve students from several counties.
• Election staffing: How election judges, including student judges, were appointed, trained and supervised, and whether partisan-balance requirements were met.
Brown asked the clerk to preserve all related communications and records and to provide election-judge rosters to Republican leadership, subject to legal privacy protections.
“Fair or not, Cook County’s elections have been a punchline for generations. Distrust of election administration crosses party lines, and the only answer is transparency and competence,” Brown said.
“When officials withhold basic information and block lawful observation, they give people more reasons to distrust the process. Transparency builds trust; secrecy destroys it.”
“Every eligible student should be encouraged to vote,” Brown said. “But if the clerk’s office cannot provide the notice, access and oversight required of any polling place, this program is not practical in its current form. Those obligations should have been met before the first ballot was cast.”
