Nov 4, 2008 10:56 pm US/Central
Some Who Voted Early Found They Could Vote Often
Loophole In Early Voting Allowed Some To Obtain Second Ballot
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Some Chicago voters who cast their ballots early said they were almost allowed to vote again on Election Day.
CBS
Chicago voters who cast their ballots early have complained that the huge success of early voting may have cast a huge new potential for vote fraud – by people who might have cast their ballots twice.
As CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, before giving voters the form to vote, city election judges were supposed to check a sheet listing every voter in the precinct who voted early or absentee.
One early voter tried to test the system at a polling place on the city's Northwest Side. She asked CBS 2 to conceal her identity, but wanted to report that the system is not working.
"Had it not been for the fact that I'm an honest, upstanding citizen, they would have allowed me a vote," the voter said.
She said the election judges were going to allow her to vote, but she stopped them.
"She was going to give me an application, and I said, 'I'm not here to vote. I'm here to make sure that I cannot vote,'" the voter said.
Election judges say they weren't going to let her vote.
"She didn't get no ballot application," election judge John Kioussis said.
There's a difference between the way the city and county judges handle information about early voters and that is partly to blame for the dispute.
County election judges were supposed to put big red stamps on the forms of early voters making it easier to catch potential fraud.
"I saw no markings no stamps, nothing," the woman said.
Langdon Neal, Chicago's election board chairman says the stamps on vote forms aren't necessary.
"We can't stamp the book, we just simply don't have time. There's too many precincts to take care of," Neal said.
And he says they rarely have a problem.
So CBS 2 tested the system. Assistant News Director Todd Woolman, who also voted early, went to his Edgewater neighborhood polling place.
Sure enough, judges started to give him the form to vote.
"I said, 'Stop, I was just coming to check because I've already voted,' and she said, 'Oh!'" Woolman said. "I said, 'Don't you have something to check to see who I voted?' And then she had a list that she looked at, and sure enough, my name was on it."
CBS 2 asked Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Chairman Langdon Neal about the findings of the investigation.
"I don't think it's a widespread problem. It's never been a widespread problem, because it's so easy to catch the perpetrators," Neal said.
Neal said he is not concerned because people who vote twice would be caught after the election, and that can mean prison time. Nonetheless, the loophole CBS 2 discovered raises serious questions about the safeguards in place to protect the integrity of the vote count in Chicago.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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