IL 8: To steal an election?

"Then, after the election, we count the votes, and if they don't turn out right, we recount them again until they do."
Edward G. Robinson's gangster character in Key Largo.

So far, the situation hasn't gotten as perilous as the one portrayed by the fictional Johnny Rocco, but Jim Geraghty in the National Review's  Campaign Spot is describing a troubling picture as the absentee votes slowly trickle back to northwest suburban Chicago. What's with the mail service? Why so slow?

Republican Joe Walsh, pictured on the right, clings to a 349 vote lead over Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean in Illinois' 8th congressional district.

Lawyers from the Illinois Republican Party are on the scene, and there is a stench in suburbia, as Geraghty explains:

The affidavits describe one voter who had not lived at the listed address in the past 15 years; a voter who a caregiver said "could not respond to questions because of dementia," and a group of ballots sent to a Clearbrook home for the mentally disabled in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.

I'm all for a fair counting of the ballots. But not a creative one. We don't need more Al Frankens.

Related post:

Halloween pledge: No more Frankens

Technorati tags: Congress Illinois politics Democrats chicago republicans elections Illinois Politics RNC joe walsh Northwest Chicago Suburbs Melissa Bean democrats law legal elections vote fraud election fraud