Pope Leo XIV requests a mail-in ballot for the 3 November US midterm elections

The request

Pope Leo XIV has asked for a mail-in ballot for the midterm elections on 3 November, according to reports first attributed to the Chicago Sun-Times. The application was filed on 3 October under the name Robert Francis Prevost, and officials in Will County, Illinois, confirmed that he remains registered there. The ballot was to travel from Joliet to the Vatican. If he casts it, he would become the first pope to take part in a secular election, and he is the first pope born in the United States.

Where the ballot stands

As of the latest reports, the clerk's office had not received a completed ballot from the pontiff, and it was unclear whether he had filled it out or sent it back. Kim Fladhammer, the clerk's chief of staff, told the Sun-Times that the name appears on the list of people who requested a mail ballot.

“Robert Francis Prevost is on the list of individuals who requested a vote by mail ballot for the upcoming election.”

Requesting a ballot does not mean he has voted, and the reports do not say how he would vote. Illinois does not register voters by party, and anyone can choose which party's primary ballot to request, so his past primary choices do not reveal his preference. Italian outlets Il Messaggero and Tgcom24 say his brother John, who lives at the New Lenox address, travelled to the Vatican in the days before the reports with about 50 parishioners and may have carried the ballot. A German report instead says the brother is transporting it to the United States, so the accounts of where the ballot is now differ.

Tensions with the White House

Leo has publicly criticised Trump administration policies, including mass deportations, the separation of families and some military interventions the White House has backed, according to La Vanguardia. N-tv adds that he has also spoken against Trump's positions on press freedom and the war in Iran, and that Trump has repeatedly attacked him personally in response. After Trump criticised him in April, the pope told reporters that he had "no fear of the Trump administration" and that he would keep speaking out against war. The two men have not yet met face to face.

What is on the ballot

The 3 November vote decides all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and roughly a third of the Senate, which together will determine control of Congress for the last two years of Donald Trump's presidency. In Illinois, the Senate race replaces Democrat Dick Durbin, who is retiring. Lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton, a Democrat, faces Republican Don Tracy and Whitfield Harrington Jr. of the American Center Party in that race. Governor JB Pritzker, also a Democrat, is seeking re-election against Republican Darren Bailey and other challengers, and Italian reports say local and judicial contests in Will County are also on the ballot.

Earlier voting record

The Sun-Times reviewed records showing that Prevost voted in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016, and in Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2010. He also voted in the 2024 general election, before he became pope. Italian reports say electoral records from recent decades were searched after his election to the papacy, and the results were mixed. Because Illinois voters choose a primary ballot without registering by party, those records do not establish his political preference.