Pope Leo XIV has become the first pontiff to vote in a US election, casting a mail-in ballot in Chicago, where he was born, ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The Vatican confirmed the vote on Friday, according to Al Jazeera.
The Vatican did not say which candidates Leo voted for, according to Al Jazeera. It said he has voted "whenever he was eligible to do so" and that his mail-in ballot in Chicago follows that long-standing practice, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Leo requested the mail-in ballot on October 3 through the Will County clerk’s office, according to the Sun-Times. The paper reported on Thursday that he is still a registered Illinois voter. Joliet radio station WJOL first reported on October 23 that he had requested a ballot, according to Axios.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a note commenting on Leo’s vote, urged Catholics to put "our faith before our politics," according to Al Jazeera.
Leo is a US citizen. He also lived in Peru as a priest and bishop for more than 20 years, and he now serves as head of state of the Vatican. US law allows citizens abroad to vote by absentee ballot.
His ballot request came ten days before surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his right lung. He was released from hospital on October 17 and is slowly resuming activities, the Sun-Times reported.
Illinois voters will choose a successor to retiring Senator Dick Durbin and decide whether to re-elect Governor JB Pritzker. Trump has clashed with Leo several times since Leo was elected pope in May 2025.
The ballot will be counted in the November 3 midterms, including the Illinois Senate race to replace Durbin and the governor’s race. No further comment from the Vatican or the Trump administration has been reported.
Several gaps remain. No candidate choices have been confirmed, and the Axios report was available only as a headline and short excerpt, so its full details could not be checked. The sources also include no response from the Trump administration and do not say whether the State Department would review Leo’s citizenship in light of his Vatican role.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.