The Citizens of Chicago are allegedly guaranteed that elections are run in an unbiased and fair manner by an organization called the Chicago Board of Elections (“CBOE”). The CBOE in turn gets it authority from a larger organization called the State of Illinois Board of Elections.
When a person registers to vote they traditionally fill out a card and either mail it to the CBOE, hand it to their precinct captain for processing, or go down to the CBOE and register on the 6th floor of 69 W. Washington.
Within a few weeks the new voter receives their Voter Registration Card. Printed on this card is all the pertinent information that was filled out on their registration card along with one very important number called the Voter Identification number. This unique number, which is actually a string of numbers and letters, is used to identify the person in the voter records that are maintained by the CBOE.
Traditionally, a person goes to the polling place to cast their ballot. This is done on a very specific date and is usually referred to as Election Day.
It should be noted that the CBOE has now instituted a new policy that allows the voter to vote before Election Day. This is a recent development that we are against for several reasons.
Another way you can vote is to vote via the Absentee Ballot. In essence, there are very specific reasons that must be supplied on an Application for Absentee Voting that should be checked and verified by the CBOE, but rarely are although the claim is the CBOE checks nearly 25% of all the Absentee Ballot Applications.
You can find the guides that are produced by the CBOE at: http://www.citizensforcommunityaction.org/Elections.htm
The 29th Ward of the City of Chicago traditionally had between 200-300 people that would vote absentee. These were mostly people that were elderly and could not easily make it to the polls for one reason or another. These were people that had a legitimate reason for voting absentee.
In the runoff elections between Carothers and Thomas the number of absentee voters skyrocketed to nearly 8 times what was normal for that ward.
The result of much political pressure by numerous groups that formed in the late 1960’s and early 70’s resulted in legislation that was referred to as the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). It started at the Federal level and then evolved into various forms at the State level.
A FOIA (foy-ah) must be responded to by government in a timely fashion. The length of time varies according to the State. All Boards of Election must comply with FOIA requests.
Analysis
of the Data
In the FOIA that was submitted to the CBOE for data pertaining to the 29th Ward we had asked for: 1) a list of voters that voted on Election Day, 2) the list of voters that voted absentee and 3) copies of the Application for Absentee Voting and their corresponding ballot envelopes.
The full analysis of this information can now be found online by turning your browser to: http://www.citizensforcommunityaction.org/Research/VoterAnalysis/AbsenteeAnalysisFinal122900.htm
Quite frankly we did not wait. More than 2400 hours was condensed into this project which lasted approximately 4 months.
When our reports were completed we set up a meeting with Cook County States Attorney Richard Devine and presented all the information you can now find online. In our analysis we found over 5500 errors in the information given on the Application for Absentee Voting, the Voter file given to us by the CBOE, etc. This is all explained in detail by turning your browser to:
http://www.citizensforcommunityaction.org/Research/VoterAnalysis/AbsenteeAnalysisFinal122900.htm
Devine’s Office had three years from the date of the election to prosecute voter fraud that occurred in the Carothers-Thomas election. In other words, after Devine received our reports he had approximately 450 days to do something in these regards. Devine did absolutely nothing.
About a month after Devine was given these reports, the Citizens for Community Action, Inc. established a picket on the south end of the Brickyard Mall, near the railroad crossing. We did this to make the general public aware of what was going on in these so-called “fair” elections. Concurrently, we ran advertising in a local newspaper exposing these findings.
Everything you see in this section of our web is indeed public information that you can also get by filing a FOIA. The CBOE maintains data for approximately 2 years and then it is destroyed. Please keep that in mind in case you want to get any information for yourself.
What
can You Do?
Fair elections are the foundation of democracy. Read the booklets that are available for download. You can view them at: http://www.citizensforcommunityaction.org/DownloadsForIssues.htm
More important than these guides is the law itself. The law is referred to as the Illinois Compiled Statutes. You can view them here: http://www.citizensforcommunityaction.org/illinois_statutes.htm
Do not tolerate illegal activity especially when it comes to your voting rights.