It apparently happens: http://chicagoreporter.com/illegal-voting-case-puts-familys-... Remember, US states are required to be quite aggressive about getting people to register to vote under motor voter laws. Also, the people who get caught seem to be the ones who say they voted on their citizenship applications; I'm not sure how actively policed this is.

When I lived in Illinois, it was explicitly legal for me as a resident to vote for the school council.

I still didn't because it was also illegal according to my native country, to vote in ANY American election.

So if an anecdote of this nature is to emerge, I'm not surprised it's from Illinois.

When exactly did you have this hammered into your head?

Not once have I heard this during my naturalization process.

But then again neither did the idea of voting once occur to me while not being a citizen either.

I got a talk about it when I got my green card.

Kind of late to be doing it when you're applying to naturalize