Pope Leo XIV mails in an Illinois midterm ballot, the Vatican says, making him the first pope known to vote in a US election

Pope Leo XIV has voted in next week’s US midterm elections, according to the Vatican. In a short statement on Friday, the Holy See Press Office said that “Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so,” and that, “in keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago” (Holy See Press Office). The Chicago-born pontiff, elected in May 2025 as the first pope from the United States, holds both US and Peruvian citizenship, according to OSV News.

The statement added two lines. “The Holy Father has also confirmed that, during his years of residence in Peru he exercised his right to vote whenever he was eligible to do so,” it said, referring to his decades as a missionary and later a bishop there. And: “The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes.” The Vatican did not say how he voted, and Illinois keeps every ballot secret. Vatican News, the Holy See’s own news service, posted the statement on X at about 6:02 a.m. PT (@VaticanNews on X).

The paper trail runs through Will County, southwest of Chicago. The pope requested a mail ballot on Oct. 3, Kim Fladhammer, chief of staff of the Will County Clerk’s Office, confirmed to NBC News on Thursday. The Chicago Sun-Times first reported the request. Speaking to the Sun-Times, Fladhammer said that the name “Robert Francis Prevost,” the pope’s birth name, appeared “on the list of individuals who requested a vote by mail ballot for the upcoming election,” according to OSV News. The newspaper said the pope has registered at a New Lenox, Illinois, address, “the same suburban Chicago town in which his elder brother John lives.”

Whether the ballot has arrived remains open. The clerk’s office told NBC News that it “has not yet received a completed ballot from the pope,” and NBC’s Chicago affiliate confirmed that the ballot had not reached the office as of Oct. 29. According to NBC, “The ballot’s journey will take it from Vatican City to Joliet, Illinois,” the county seat. The Vatican statement says he “has submitted” it; this desk found no public record of the county logging its receipt as of Friday afternoon PT.

The record also shows a voter who has crossed party primaries. Citing voting records, the Sun-Times said the future pope voted in “the Republican primaries of 2012, 2014 and 2016; the Democratic primaries of 2008 and 2010; and the general elections of 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2024,” according to OSV News, which adds that “he did not vote in the state’s March primary this year.” Illinois voters do not register by party, OSV notes; a voter chooses a party’s ballot at each primary. NBC’s list of his past votes matches the Republican primaries and the four general elections.

His ballot carries an open US Senate seat and the governor’s race. “The Will County ballot includes the U.S. Senate and governor races, along with several county and judicial posts,” OSV News reports. According to NBC News, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, the Democratic Senate nominee, seeks to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, and the pope’s congressman, Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., represents a district that NBC describes as part of “a series of solidly blue races.”

Several outlets frame the vote as a first. AP called him the first pontiff to vote in a US general election, in a search summary this desk could read (the full AP page refused this desk’s downloader). NBC News wrote that “by virtue of becoming the first American pope in May 2025, Leo will be the first pope to vote in a U.S. election.” The Guardian went further, saying no sitting pontiff has a known record of casting a ballot in any political election in history. This desk could not independently check that broader claim, which rests on the absence of any known earlier case.

The US bishops welcomed the news. “In voting, our Holy Father sets the example that encourages each citizen to exercise their civic responsibility,” Chieko Noguchi, executive director of public affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in an Oct. 30 statement quoted by OSV News. OSV also recalled a message the pope sent in April to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he said that “democracy remains healthy, however, only when rooted in the moral law and a true vision of the human person.” Quoting St. John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, he added that democracy offers people “the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.”

NBC News describes Leo as a critic of the Trump administration. According to NBC, President Donald Trump and the pope traded words in April after Leo called for peace in the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28; Trump wrote on social media that the pope stood “WEAK on crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy,” and said, “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo.” Leo told NBC that he had “no fear of the Trump administration.” Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, said the pope should “be careful” when he talks about theology, NBC reports. The Guardian adds that the pontiff has described the administration’s immigration policies as “inhuman.” None of these sources reports any comment from the White House on Friday’s announcement.

Neither the Vatican nor any of the outlets this desk checked says how he voted, and Illinois keeps each ballot secret. The Holy See’s statement frames the vote only as a matter of citizenship: he votes as a US citizen “whenever he was eligible to do so,” as he did in Peru (Holy See Press Office).

The ballot request came shortly before major surgery. According to The Guardian, he made it 10 days before surgery “to remove a cancerous tumour from his right lung,” and he left hospital on Oct. 17; Seems News covered his discharge. The Guardian reports that he plans an 11-day trip covering 10 cities in Latin America in November, and that the Holy See’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, told reporters this week a papal visit to the US could come in the “not too distant future,” adding that the midterm results might affect whether that trip happens in 2027 or later.