Chicago election hijinks: Poll judges in fistfight, "invisible ink"

The reputation still exists, but the days of egregious electoral fraud are in Chicago's past. Fear of federal investigations, not a sudden dose of honesty by the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, is why.

But rank incompetence and sheer craziness still exists in the City of Big Shoulders on each election day. I found a couple of stories proving that from yesterday's primary balloting.

On the city's West Side, two female election judges got into a fist fight. Fox 32 Chicago wasn't able to determine what the scuffle was about, or the party afflilation of the judges.

Not too far away from me, at a precinct on Chicago's Far North Side, about twenty voters were given pens that didn't write. A judge there told the voters that the pens were using invisible ink, and there was no need to worry. Of course the optical scanning machines were not able to tabulate the choices of those twenty ballots.

Amy Carlton, 38, told the Chicago Sun-Times, "I have been voting since I was 18. This is the most important election of my life so far."

And undoubtedly one she'll never forget.

H/T to The Bench for the boxing ballot-box judges story.

Related post: Super Tuesday voting, Niles Township's 58th Precinct, not hassle free

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