Pope Leo XIV votes in a United States election for the first time as pontiff, and the Vatican confirmed on Friday, October 30, 2026, that the Chicago-born pope has submitted his mail-in ballot for next Tuesday's midterm elections. The confirmation makes him the first sitting pope in the Catholic Church's roughly 2,000-year history known to have cast a ballot in a secular democratic election, a milestone that instantly turned an ordinary civic act into a piece of history.
The Holy See Press Office announced the news in a short statement on Friday morning, four days before Americans go to the polls on November 3. It stressed that the pope, an American citizen, was continuing a habit he has kept for decades rather than making a political statement. The ballot itself reveals nothing about his choices: in a general election, a ballot records votes, not party loyalty, and the Vatican said nothing about which candidates or measures he backed.
The story broke in two stages. On Thursday, October 29, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Will County clerk's office had confirmed that Robert Francis Prevost, the pope's birth name, was on the list of voters who had requested a vote-by-mail ballot for this election. Kim Fladhammer, chief of staff at the Will County clerk's office, confirmed the October 3 request to the newspaper. At that point, it was not yet publicly established whether the ballot had been completed and returned.
On Friday morning, the Vatican removed the doubt. "Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so," the Holy See Press Office said. "The Holy See Press Office confirms that in keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago."
The statement added a line that framed the act as a matter of principle rather than partisanship: "The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes." It also confirmed that, during his years living in Peru, where he also holds citizenship, he voted whenever he was eligible to do so there as well.
How exactly the ballot travelled from Vatican City back to Illinois has not been publicly explained. The Associated Press reported that it was unclear how Leo returned the ballot, and the Vatican's statement did not describe the route. What is confirmed is the endpoint: a ballot submitted in Chicago, in the name under which he has been registered for years, for an election held four days after the announcement.
Robert Francis Prevost was born in Chicago in 1955 and grew up in Dolton, a suburb south of the city. He spent nearly two decades as a missionary and then as a bishop in Peru, and he holds both United States and Peruvian citizenship. When he was elected pope in May 2025, he became the first American-born pontiff in the Church's history, and he has been based in Vatican City since, without a visit back to the United States.
That biography is what makes this ballot possible at all. United States citizens living abroad are entitled to vote in federal elections by absentee or mail ballot under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, and Illinois allows any registered voter to request a vote-by-mail ballot without giving a reason. The pope's registration, under his birth name, sits in Will County, in the Chicago suburbs, at an address in New Lenox, the town where his older brother, John Prevost, lives.
His record as a voter is unusually well documented, because Illinois election records are public in part. Since 2000, he has taken part in five primary elections. While registered in heavily Democratic Cook County, he requested Democratic primary ballots in 2008 and 2010. After moving to the more conservative suburban Will County, he requested Republican primary ballots in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Illinois has no party registration, so choosing one party's primary ballot does not make a voter a member of that party, and the records do not show which candidates he supported in any race.
In general elections, the records show ballots in 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2024, the last of them by absentee ballot. He did not vote in the 2020 presidential election or the 2022 midterms, according to records reviewed by the New York Times, and he did not vote in Illinois's March 2026 primary. That uneven pattern is, in itself, unremarkable: millions of Americans vote in some cycles and skip others. What is remarkable is only the office he now holds while doing it.
No previous pope has done this, for a simple reason: until Leo, no pope had ever been a citizen of a modern democracy with a mail ballot waiting for him. Earlier pontiffs were subjects of the Papal States or citizens of Italy, and none is recorded as having cast a ballot in a nation's civil elections while in office. The Church's two millennia of history contain emperors, kings and revolutionaries, but not a voting pope.
British historian Michael Walsh, who has written several books on the papacy, told CNN that Leo would be the first pope to vote in a democratic, secular election. The Associated Press put it more directly, reporting that Leo "has become the first pope to vote in a U.S. general election." Vatican News, the Holy See's own outlet, reported the confirmation without fanfare, noting simply that the pope had voted in the midterm elections and believed in the right and duty of citizens to take part in democratic processes.
The distinction matters. Leo is not the first pope to express views about politics, and he is not the first to urge Catholics to vote. Since his election, he has encouraged civic involvement and urged people to make their voices heard on major questions of the day. What is new is the personal act: a reigning pontiff joining the electorate as an ordinary voter, filling in a ballot like any other Illinois citizen living abroad.
The Vatican's own words have been the centre of the coverage, and they were deliberately spare. "Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so," the Holy See Press Office said. "In keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago." The statement's closing line carried the message the Vatican wanted heard: "The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes."
The Will County clerk's office, for its part, confirmed the mechanics rather than the meaning. Its chief of staff, Kim Fladhammer, told the Chicago Sun-Times that "Robert Francis Prevost is on the list of individuals who requested a vote by mail ballot for the upcoming election," with the request dated October 3. The office had not, at the time of the first reports, received public confirmation that the completed ballot had arrived back in the county.
Historians supplied the context. Michael Walsh's assessment, reported by CNN, that Leo is likely the first pope to vote in a secular democratic election, has been echoed across the coverage, and no historian cited in the reporting has produced a counterexample. The Illinois State Board of Elections, meanwhile, has previously confirmed the underlying fact that makes the story possible: days after the conclave in May 2025, its spokesman Matt Dietrich told Religion News Service that the new pope was still an active Will County voter and had mailed in a ballot for the November 2024 presidential race.
The timing gives the story weight beyond its novelty. The November 3 midterms will decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships, along with state and local races across the country, and both parties have described the election as among the most consequential in generations. In Illinois, voters will also weigh in on the governor's race, a Senate contest and House races, and the pope's own New Lenox precinct ballot carries those contests like any other.
The story also lands in the middle of a fierce national argument about mail-in voting itself. Early voting has already surged past 43 million ballots in this cycle, and mail ballots are a large part of that total, even as courts and campaigns argue over ballot rules in states including California and Texas. A pope voting by mail does not settle any of those arguments, but it does put the world's most prominent Catholic in the same category as tens of millions of ordinary absentee voters: a citizen abroad, using the system designed for citizens abroad.
There is a subtler point, too. The pope's primary record, Democratic ballots then Republican ballots, is a reminder that a primary ballot is a choice of ballot, not a declaration of allegiance, and that a general-election ballot discloses no party at all. In a campaign season saturated with claims about who belongs to which tribe, the most famous new voter in America turns out to have crossed the line in both directions, and to have skipped elections altogether in other years. His ballot, in other words, looks a lot like a normal voter's record, which may be exactly why the Vatican framed it as a duty rather than a gesture.
The ballot now follows the ordinary path of any Will County mail ballot: it must arrive, be verified against the voter's registration, and be counted with the rest of the county's mail vote after the polls close on November 3. Election officials have not said when, or whether, they will confirm receipt of this particular ballot, and there is no reason to expect a running commentary on one voter's envelope among millions.
For the Vatican, the episode is likely to be treated as closed: the statement has been made, the ballot has been submitted, and the pope's public schedule moves on. For American Catholics, the more lasting effect may be the example itself, delivered four days before polling day, from a Chicago native who now leads a global church of more than a billion people and still, on paper, votes in suburban Illinois.
The count, when it comes, will not single out one ballot. But the record will: the first time a pope voted in an American election will be dated to this week, to a mail ballot requested on October 3 in Will County, and confirmed on October 30 by the Holy See itself.
Yes. The Holy See Press Office confirmed on Friday, October 30, 2026, that Pope Leo XIV has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago for the November 3 midterm elections.
According to historians cited in the coverage, yes. He is the first pope known to vote in a United States election, and likely the first to vote in any secular democratic election while in office, in the Church's roughly 2,000-year history.
He remains registered in Will County, Illinois, under his birth name, Robert Francis Prevost, at an address in New Lenox, a suburb of Chicago where his brother John lives. He requested his mail ballot on October 3, 2026.
His primary record includes Democratic ballots in 2008 and 2010 and Republican ballots in 2012, 2014 and 2016, but Illinois has no party registration, and primary records do not show which candidates he supported. General-election ballots do not disclose party at all.
Tuesday, November 3, 2026. All 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships are on the ballot, along with state and local races.
Related: early voting has already surged past 43 million ballots.
Related: the final campaign weekend has been reshaped by cancelled rallies.
Related: mail-in voting itself has become a flashpoint in Texas.
Sources: Holy See Press Office statement via Vatican News and USA TODAY; Associated Press; CNN; Chicago Sun-Times reporting via AP and Firstpost; Illinois State Board of Elections records as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, ABC News and NBC News.
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