Chronicle TV Host Ali Brenneman and Producer Adriah Hedrick got Columbia students’ opinions on the three Illinois ballot measures that passed in the 2024 election this November. 

The measures include changes in election fraud penalties, IVF insurance requirements and raising taxes for people with higher incomes. These policies wouldn’t immediately go into action; they still have to be approved by Illinois lawmakers for the changes to be officially made. 

TRANSCRIPT:

0:05

Although the main thing on many people’s minds for this previous election was who the next president was gonna be, 

0:10

the state of Illinois had many ballot measures for people to vote on as well.

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All three of these measures in Illinois passed this year, and we asked students at Columbia how they felt about these specific policies.

0:21

The questions on the ballot were about penalties for election interference, insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization and raising taxes on higher incomes.

0:29

One measure that was passed was about voter support for taxes increasing by 3% for those who make over $1 million. For the people that don’t make as much income and then the taxes raising, sometimes I would feel like it’s a little unfair because you’re just barely getting by.

0:43

I usually like equal, everybody gets the same tax or it’s progressive where if you are making more, you get more in taxes at state, local, federal.

0:54

Another one was on reproductive health care being covered by insurance including procedures like in vitro fertilization.

0:59

I am in favor of having that– different types of just reproductive health supported and covered by insurance because I think reproductive health is a part of– it should be a part of health care.

1:12

I think that everything should be covered by health insurance.

1:16

I think it should be free.

1:17

I think all of that is great.

1:19

So, I definitely support that being covered by health insurance.

1:23

The last measure asked about penalties for both attempting and successfully committing election fraud on the federal state or local level.

1:30

Just yeah, like if you’re really gonna mess with something that’s really important, then you should definitely, like have at least some type of punishment to do about it because it, again, election is something important.

1:39

You can’t just mess with it and then it kind of takes the whole purpose off of it too.

1:44

I definitely think that it’s shouldn’t be allowed and that there should be consequences.

1:52

I think that fraud in the election can affect so much just because it’s the next four years and encapsulate so much that I think that it’s definitely important to make sure that nobody is deciding things besides what the votes actually reflect.

2:10

While all of these measures had over 60% of voters in favor,

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they are simply advisory measures, meaning lawmakers will take the decisions into account but doesn’t necessarily mean they will be passed into law.

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Ali Brenneman Chronicle TV News.