Pope Leo casts a mail ballot in the midterms, the first pope known to vote in an American election

A pope has voted in an American election, and the Vatican said so itself. On Friday the Holy See Press Office confirmed that Pope Leo XIV has submitted his mail in ballot in Chicago for the November 3 midterms. Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen whenever he was eligible to do so, the statement said. In keeping with this long standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail in ballot in Chicago. The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes.

Leo is the first American born pope, elected in May 2025. He was born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago in 1955, and Illinois records show a voter who has cast ballots in nearly every general election since 2000, in both parties' primaries at different times, Democratic ballots in Cook County in 2008 and 2010 and Republican ballots in Will County in 2012, 2014 and 2016, and an absentee ballot in the 2024 general election. He requested this year's ballot on October 3, according to the Will County clerk's office, which told the Chicago Sun Times that Robert Francis Prevost appeared on its list of mail ballot requesters. He is registered at an address in New Lenox, where his brother John lives. As of Thursday the clerk's office had not yet received the completed ballot back. It has a long trip to make from Vatican City to Joliet.

Historians of the papacy say the first is larger than the American angle. Michael Walsh, a British historian who has written several books on the papacy, told CNN he believes Leo is the first pope ever to vote in a democratic, secular election. I don't think popes have ever voted in a democratic election before, he said. Popes are heads of state of the Vatican, an absolute monarchy that holds no elections of its own, and the working assumption for centuries was that a pontiff simply did not take part in any country's politics at the ballot box. Leo also holds Peruvian citizenship, acquired in 2015 after more than twenty years as a missionary and bishop there, and the Vatican noted that he voted in Peru whenever he was eligible during those years too.

American law allows it. Citizens living abroad may vote by absentee ballot, including citizens who work for foreign governments, and Leo has never renounced his American citizenship. What his ballot contains, nobody outside the count will know. Illinois voters on Tuesday choose a successor to retiring Senator Dick Durbin, decide whether Governor JB Pritzker gets a third term against Republican Darren Bailey and independent Collin Corbett, and fill House, state and county offices. Leo met Pritzker at the Vatican in November 2025. The Vatican's statement named no candidate, no party and no issue, only the duty to take part. On an election weekend when the federal government and the courts are fighting over who may vote and how ballots are handled, the head of the Catholic Church quietly filed his own ballot from the smallest state on earth, under the name he was born with.