Written by Carol Davis

Church Ballot Collection Program: The Ballots Are Ripe for the Harvest

Many people of faith are deeply distressed over the extent to which government actions affect our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Yet, too many people in the pews next to us simply do not vote!

I’ve been involved in all aspects of elections for decades and I’ve agonized over this lack of civic engagement on the part of my fellow Christians.

George Barna is a well-known researcher who offers insights into faith and culture. Prior to the 2024 election, Barna’s research indicated that as many as 104 million people of faith were unlikely to vote in the November 2024 election—and among those, 32 million self-identified Christians who regularly attend church wouldn’t cast a ballot. Barna’s article is enlightening.

What were some of the reasons given for not voting?

The majority (two-thirds) simply had no interest in politics and elections. Other reasons given were a dislike of all the candidates; the candidates didn’t reflect their most important views; the feeling that their one vote wouldn’t make a difference; the election will be rigged; and they didn’t know enough about the candidates to make a good choice.

However, churchgoers expressed an interest in their pastor and church leaders providing education to help them with Biblical citizenship. Barna’s research revealed,

“…about one out of every six likely non-voters said they would probably vote if their church taught them that voting is a biblical responsibility for every Christian.”

In an effort to assist churches in setting up their own Biblical citizenship ministries, national organizations such as the Salt & Light Counsel, My Faith Votes, and Family Research Council offer resources, courses and guidance.

Here in our state, Illinois Family Institute provides many resources and guidance to help facilitate Biblical citizenship.

A few years ago, I learned of a church in California that took civic engagement even further. Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills set up a program in their church to legally collect (harvest) ballots, and it has been a rousing success. In the 2022 election, they collected almost 20,000 ballots!

In addition, they conducted their program with such high integrity that, even though forces tried to come against them, the saboteurs did not prevail – in fact, they were soundly defeated. Calvary’s program is being studied and implemented across the country in states which allow some form of ballot collection.

When I heard about Calvary’s program and their success several years ago, it really grabbed my attention. I began to research what they were doing, and whether something similar might work in Illinois.

I’m very excited to announce that my organization, Illinois Conservative Union, has launched our own church ballot collection program, the ICU Ballot Brigade. It turns out that California and Illinois have similarly broad laws regarding ballot collection.

To ensure that I was on sound footing, first I spoke with Gina Gleason, the Director of Real Impact – the ministry at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills which conceived and runs their ballot collection program. Then, with the assistance of Claude.ai (an artificial intelligence model) I ran a comparison of California and Illinois ballot collection laws.

The results showed that Illinois law is even more broad than California. The next step was to enlist the aid of our volunteer paralegal to verify the information provided by A.I. She determined that it was correct. As a final step, we consulted one of the top election attorneys in Illinois (who is also highly respected nationwide).

He found absolutely no fault with our findings.

I moved forward with creating our ICU Ballot Brigade step-by step program. It’s now available for faith communities throughout Illinois to take this carefully researched and vetted program and run with it. If we can’t get our church-goers into the polling places, then let’s (figuratively speaking) bring the polling place into the churches.

I was pleased to present the program in a one-hour session on March 14th, 2026, at the Networking the Networks Faith & Fire Conference held at Quentin Road Baptist Church in Lake Zurich, IL. The video of that presentation and materials to implement the ICU Ballot Brigade Program in your own church can be found at www.ieip.org/guardians-education-links/.

The program is free – no fees or permissions required.

We simply ask that you NOT post the program materials on social media, and that you NOT alter the program so it remains in compliance with Illinois statutes.

Please let us know if you implement the program, and if you have any questions. Our contact info can be found on the downloads available at that link.

Our prayer is that the ICU Ballot Brigade Program will help to get more people in the faith community activated to vote, and to vote their values. May God bless your efforts.

Carol Davis, Chair, Illinois Conservative Union (short bio if needed)

Having served as an Illinois Election Judge for many years, Carol researched election law and procedures. She recognized weak areas which might facilitate fraud and worked to find solutions. For over a decade, Carol has conducted trainings on many aspects of election integrity for organizations across Illinois and the nation.