Pope Leo XIV has requested a mail-in ballot for next week's midterm elections. If he sends it in, he would reportedly be the first sitting pope in the Catholic Church's 2,000-year history to vote in a civil election, according to Mediaite. The Chicago-born pontiff is still registered to vote in Illinois under his birth name, Robert Francis Prevost. He's listed at his brother John's home in suburban New Lenox. Will County's clerk's office told the Chicago Sun-Times that he requested the ballot on October 3rd. As of Thursday, officials hadn't received it back, so it's unclear whether he has voted yet.

His ballot includes the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, Gov. JB Pritzker's bid for reelection and several local contests. Records shared by journalist Christopher Hale on his Letters from Leo Substack show that the pope voted in Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2010 and in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016. He also voted in the 2024 presidential election. Illinois doesn't register voters by party, so anyone can pick either primary ballot. "He hasn't voted in a primary since Trump was first elected," Hale noted on X.

The news follows months of public friction between Leo and President Trump over immigration enforcement and U.S. military action abroad. In April, Trump called the pope "terrible for foreign policy." Leo responded that he isn't "afraid of the Trump administration" or of speaking out about the Gospel. The pope has criticized mass deportations and family separations, opposes the death penalty and has warned against escalating wars. Elected in May 2025 as the first American pope, Leo is now recovering from surgery earlier this month to remove part of his right lung after a cancer diagnosis.