November 3, 2022 – Springfield, IL – With just under a week to go until Election Day, some Illinois voters could be voting at a new location based on redistricting that created the new gerrymandered Illinois legislative districts.
13th Congressional Candidate Nikki Budzinski, for example, will find herself voting in a General Election in Central Illinois for the second time ever.
WCIA highlighted Budzinski’s ‘recent arrival in town’ in their story: ‘Budzinski scrambles to restore suspended voter registration after relocating to Sangamon County’.
“According to Sangamon County election records, Budzinksi, who voted in Chicago for each of the last five elections, attempted to register to vote at an apartment in Springfield a few days before she announced her campaign to run for Congress back in August. However, when the clerk’s office sent a voter identification notice to her listed apartment address, it came back “undeliverable.”
Despite warnings from the Sangamon County Clerk’s Office, Budzinski did not correct the error until WCIA contacted her campaign. Records show that she still owns a home in Chicago where she continued to be registered to vote while working in the Biden Administration.
Nikki’s fly-in to run for Congress has not gone unnoticed:
Senator Dick Durbin:
“She made the move back to Illinois to make this race for Congress.”
Democrat Candidate David Palmer:
“You have to run for the district,” Palmer said, “and it would help if you lived here to be able to do that.” Palmer called it “a strange scenario to be trying to represent a constituency [where] you can’t participate in the voting process.”
“I think that voters are looking for someone new and fresh,” he said.
“I think they want someone who understands the local issues, who’s been here, who’s dealt with them,” he said. “I’m not visiting for the first time in 15, 20 years. I’ve been living here. I raised my children here.”
40-year Democratic Party activist and former Illinois Democratic Party state representative Bill Edley:
“Why did Chicago Democrats draw a heavily gerrymandered 13th Congressional District by increasing minority population, and then decide to fly in a non-minority Peoria native (Peoria is not in the 13th), who had been working and living in Washington, D.C., and had never voted in either the old or new 13th Congressional District?”
“My Democratic Party experiences as a former Democrat state legislator, Democratic National Convention delegate and 40-year Democratic Party activist finds that Chicago Dems hold very little respect for downstate voters. Democratic Party insiders think they can rig the system and downstate voters won’t know the difference.”
In stark contrast to the New Nikki, her opponent Regan Deering has been living, working, voting and raising her family in Central Illinois for years. She continues to serve as the President of the Northeast Community Fund where she works to meet the basic needs of families, provide financial support to those in hardship and give resources to move people out of poverty.
“I am proud of where I am from and honest about who I am,” Deering said. “I understand the values and needs of the people in our Central and Southern Illinois community. Unlike my opponent, I am running to bring our district’s agenda to Washington, not President Biden’s agenda to our district.”
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