At Least 11 Illinois Counties Vote November 3 on Leaving Cook County Behind

Voters in at least 11 Illinois counties will decide on November 3 whether their county boards should explore separating from Cook County and Chicago to form a new state, according to official ballots and county board records.

The questions are advisory. Every county notice labels them “Non-Binding Advisory Public Policy” questions. But if they pass, as every one has since 2020, more than 40 of Illinois’ 102 counties will have voted to pursue a new state.

Where the question is on the ballot

Ten counties ask the question written by the group Illinois Separation, in its standard form or close to it: Monroe, Gallatin, Saline, McDonough, Warren, Macoupin, Coles, Washington, Piatt and Hamilton. The standard text reads:

“Shall the board of [X] County correspond with the boards of the other counties of Illinois outside of Cook County about the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state, and to seek admission to the Union as such, subject to the approval of the people?”

Piatt and Hamilton ask whether the county should “collaborate in discussion with the remaining 101 counties” about “forming a new state and ultimately seeking admission to the Federal Union as the 51st State.”

Ford County asks a different question, written apart from the Illinois Separation campaign: whether the General Assembly should “pursue legislation and constitutional measures to separate the City of Chicago and Cook County from the remainder of the State of Illinois, creating a new state.”

NBC Chicago reported that Henderson County will also vote and that several Adams County townships will too. The Texian Partisan could not confirm those from official ballots.

County boards put each question on the ballot. In Gallatin the vote was 5-0, in Warren 12-0 and in Piatt 6-0, according to board records. Others split: 15-3 in McDonough, 9-3 in Coles and 9-6 in Macoupin.

The record so far

Thirty-three counties have voted on the question since 2020, and all 33 passed it, NBC Chicago reported. In 2024, the yes vote ranged from 56.5 percent in Madison County to more than 76 percent in Calhoun and Jersey, according to election-night results. Calhoun’s certified count was 1,861 to 566.

“This is our lived experience. We are ignored,” Loret Newlin, director of Illinois Separation, told NBC Chicago. “We are not taken into consideration when they’re making a lot of the laws that hurt us.”

A spokesperson for Gov. JB Pritzker called the effort a “stunt” and said “it’s not going to happen,” NBC Chicago reported.

What it would take

A new state cannot be carved out of an existing one without the consent of that state’s legislature and of Congress under Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. A 2025 resolution by state Rep. Brad Halbrook urging Congress to recognize “the 101 counties of downstate Illinois” as the 51st state has sat in the House Rules Committee since February 2025.

Illinois polls close at 7 p.m. Central on November 3. The Texian Partisan will report the county results as they come in.