New law hurts candidate accessibility

As a former member of the League of Women Voters of Illinois who organized candidate forums in the greater Elgin area for many years, I feel I must comment on passage of the new law allowing public officials to shield personal information from public view. Removing what used to be a matter of public record, the mailing address of candidates for public office, has made it infinitely more difficult for civic groups to provide candidate forums as a public service to the voters.

In the past, I could check the Kane County Office of Elections or Illinois State Board of Elections to obtain the list of candidates running and their mailing addresses so that I could send them an invitation to a nonpartisan candidate forum. But in recent years, access to the most basic candidate information has become more restricted or unavailable.

While Democrats and Republicans may hold their own primary forums for members of their parties, the ability of the LWV and other nonpartisan organizations to organize candidate forums for both the primaries and the general elections is severely curtailed, especially for local, nonpartisan consolidated elections.

Any person who decides to run for public office is to be commended. And there should be reasonable protections in place to keep them safe. But seeking public office requires that one give up some privacy to be both accessible and accountable. In my opinion, both the candidates mailing address and personal or campaign email address should be required and publicly available to anyone needing to contact them.

Democracy only works when we have an educated electorate willing and able to make informed choices. Any law that restricts voter access to information and the ability to make an informed choice does us all a disservice and should be reconsidered.

Evelyn H. Grom

Sleepy Hollow