Pope Leo XIV has voted in the US midterm elections. The Vatican confirmed on Friday, Oct. 30, that the Chicago-born pope “has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. That makes him the first pontiff to vote in a US election, the Sun-Times and CBS News reported.
He votes the way millions of Americans abroad do. He sends an absentee ballot home to the county where he is registered. For him, that is Will County, Illinois, in the suburbs southwest of Chicago.
What the Vatican and Will County confirmed
The Sun-Times broke the story on Oct. 29. Kim Fladhammer is chief of staff in the Will County clerk’s office. She told the paper: “Robert Francis Prevost is on the list of individuals who requested a vote by mail ballot for the upcoming election.” He is registered at an address in New Lenox and made the request on Oct. 3, the Sun-Times reported.
The Holy See press office answered reporters’ questions the next day. “Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so,” it said, according to America magazine. In Peru, it added, “he exercised his right to vote every time he had the possibility.”
The Vatican also gave a reason. “The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” it said, per CBS. Leo holds both US and Peruvian citizenship, CBS reported.
How the ballot got back to Illinois isn’t public. “It is unclear how Leo returned the ballot,” the Associated Press reported via ABC7 Chicago. His brother, John Prevost, was in Rome that week with parishioners from St. Jude, an Augustinian parish in New Lenox, the AP said. Nobody has said he carried it.
Leo asked for the ballot days before the lung cancer surgery the Vatican announced this month, CBS reported. He left the hospital on Oct. 17.
How an American living abroad votes absentee
Leo’s case is unusual only because of who he is. The rules he votes under cover every US citizen overseas.
The key law is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986, or UOCAVA. It requires states to let troops and overseas citizens register and vote absentee for federal offices, the Justice Department explains. Most states extend the same rights to state and local races. Leo’s ballot includes county contests.
On Thursday, the Illinois State Board of Elections said any registered voter in the state can vote by mail. It added that citizens overseas have that right under UOCAVA, the Sun-Times reported.
Under the federal law, each state must do the following, the Justice Department says:
- accept a registration and ballot request received by the 30th day before the election;
- send the ballot by the 45th day before the election, if the request arrived by then;
- let voters get forms and blank ballots electronically;
- accept a backup Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot if the real one arrives too late;
- offer free tracking, so voters can see that their ballot arrived.
Most overseas voters start with the Federal Post Card Application. That one form registers a voter and requests a ballot, USA.gov says. Leo is still registered at his New Lenox address, and the clerk’s office described a vote-by-mail request. Neither the Vatican nor the clerk has said whether he used the overseas form.
Illinois counts ballots that arrive up to 14 days late
Each state sets its own return deadline. Illinois counts a mail ballot postmarked by Election Day if it is “received by the Board of Elections no later than 14 days after the date of the election,” NBC Chicago reported. For Nov. 3, that means Nov. 17.
Grace periods like this one have been fought over in court. In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Watson v. Republican National Committee that federal law doesn’t bar them. The case let Mississippi count ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive later, according to Venable’s analysis. Mail ballots are still in court elsewhere: the Justice Department has sued over ballots in Alaska and California this month.
One change matters for anyone mailing late. The Postal Service now postmarks mail on the day a facility processes it, not the day someone drops it off, NBC Chicago reported. So a ballot mailed the day before the election could miss an Election Day postmark. Voters in Illinois can use a secured drop box until 7 p.m. on Election Day instead.
What his voting record does and doesn’t show
Leo is a regular voter. State records show he voted in five primaries since 2000, the AP reported. While registered in Cook County, he asked for Democratic ballots in 2008 and 2010. After he moved to suburban Will County, he asked for Republican ballots in 2012, 2014 and 2016.
He voted in every general election since 2000 except 2020 and 2022, the same records show. He skipped Illinois’ March primary this year, the Sun-Times reported.
None of this shows how he voted. Illinois voters must pick a party’s ballot in a primary. They don’t declare a party in a general election, the AP noted. A primary ballot shows which contests a voter wanted a say in, not who got the vote.
This year’s ballot includes the race for retiring Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat, Gov. JB Pritzker’s reelection bid and Will County judicial and county races, the Sun-Times reported. For the national picture, see our guide to the 2026 Senate races to watch. The Vatican didn’t say how Leo voted in any of them.
Pritzker and the bishops use the vote as a nudge
The Vatican framed the vote as a civic duty, and others ran with it. “If the Pope can vote all the way from Vatican City, you can too!” Pritzker posted on Thursday, according to the Sun-Times.
Chieko Noguchi runs public affairs for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. “In voting, our Holy Father sets the example that encourages each citizen to exercise their civic responsibility,” she said, as quoted by America. At a general audience on Sept. 2, Leo urged people to leave behind “all passivity and indifference,” CBS reported.
The ballot fits that message. A pope who tells Catholics to take part in public life has now done it himself. He did so under the same rules as any American abroad.
Election Day, then a Nov. 17 deadline for his ballot
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. If Leo’s ballot carries a postmark by then, Will County can count it as long as it arrives by Nov. 17. The pope has a 12-day Latin American trip ahead, with a stop in Peru from Nov. 11 to 17, America reported.