Chicago stupidity trumps Florida's?

[SuicideKing]

When it comes to election shenanigans, Chicago has been accused of just about everything.

But invisible ink?

Twenty voters at a Far North Side precinct who found their ink pens not working were told by election judges not to worry.

It's invisible ink, officials said. The scanner will count it.

But their votes weren't recorded after all.

"Part of me was thinking it does sound stupid enough to be true,'' said Amy Carlton, who had serious doubts but went ahead and voted anyway.

As it turns out, Carlton was one of 20 voters at the precinct who were given the wrong pen to use. They were also then told, apparently by a misinformed judge, that the pens have invisible ink, elections officials said.

As a result, the votes were not counted. But officials insisted there were no dirty tricks involved.

"This one defies logic,'' said Jim Allen, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections. "You try to anticipate everything. But certain things just ... they go beyond any kind of planning you can perform.''

Most accurate self-assessment ever?

"I am furious and devastated and I just feel stupid,'' Carlton said.



*EDIT* My bad, I forgot the link... (http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/779528,CST-NWS-magic06.article) Then went to lunch. Sorry about that.

[Heretic Machine]

Don't worry about it, in the end it turns out that the love letter is really Marvin Acme's will, written with disappearing-reappearing ink, and he leaves Toon Town to the toons after all.

[51|RandoM]

Is there some way to have a fulltime job running various voting machines? I doubt it.

Expecting everybody who gets stuck with that job to be Einstein is not a reasonable expectation.

[NationalKato]

Expecting everybody who gets stuck with that job to be Einstein is not a reasonable expectation.

So wait, only Albert Einstein would know that a pen isn't invisible ink? I feel way more smarter already.

[Deadend]

Is there some way to have a fulltime job running various voting machines? I doubt it.

Expecting everybody who gets stuck with that job to be Einstein is not a reasonable expectation.

But disapearing ink?! Come on man, that is... can you come up with a plausible scenario for that?

[Slack3r78]

Link please?

[TheEpicOfTyler]

They obviously only gave those pens to Ron Paul supporters.

[Dr.Finger]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/779528,CST-NWS-magic06.article

[51|RandoM]

But disapearing ink?! Come on man, that is... can you come up with a plausible scenario for that?

How do you determine that what appears to be invisible ink is not indeed invisible ink? :D

[Kuya Cocoy]

I don't get the Ron Paul hate.. or maybe I'm not informed enough?

Another explanation could be that the ink is the same color as the paper. ;)

But don't worry, special chemical processes will be performed on the ballot.. for verification.

Unless it's cursive, it'll be hard to write with invisible ink, right? Does anyone have any, uh, experience here? :)

[TheEpicOfTyler]

I don't get the Ron Paul hate.. or maybe I'm not informed enough?

I was one of 500 some people who voted for Ron Paul in Illinois :p

[cp#]

Don't vote people, it only helps the terrorists

[Deadend]

I was one of 500 some people who voted for Ron Paul in Illinois :p

you mean 480.

[Oxonian]

I shall use this thread to post my own election shenanigan story.

I have occasionally worked as an election monitor: my job was to respond to complaints on Election Day. I received a call from a person who claimed he was a registered voter but had been denied permission to vote. The voter lived in a high-crime area, and the local ward boss was suspected of also being a major drug trafficker. So I went out to investigate.

I met the voter, who told me he had a longstanding dispute with the ward boss/drug kingpin. When he tried to vote, the officials (who were appointed by the ward boss) told him his address was false. The voter showed me his driver's license and voter registration card, both of which superficially appeared to be valid. So I went into the polling place to speak to the officials there.

I tried to adopt a neutral and conciliatory tone, but the officials greeted me with unrestrained hostility and shouting (generally not a good sign). One of the officials, who was introduced to me as an "election judge," claimed not to speak English. She claimed, through an interpreter, that she personally knew the voter did not live where his ID said he did, and that she had evaluated her own testimony on this matter and deemed it credible. (FYI: judges are generally discouraged from being witnesses in the cases they are judging.)

As a bit of background, Congress passed a law after the 2000 election debacle that established what to do when someone tries to vote but doesn't seem eligible. Basically, the voter is supposed to put his ballot in a special sealed envelope; later, election officials can check whether the voter is eligible and determine whether this 'provisional ballot' should be counted or not. The provisional ballot is supposed to be handed out like candy: Kim Jong-Il could walk into a polling place and get a provisional ballot. But these election officials, including Alleged Judge No Habla Ingles, didn't think this voter was entitled even to cast a provisional ballot.

I pointed out that, y'know, maybe we should let the voter cast a provisional ballot and sort out whether he was eligible in the morning. No dice. One official handed me a document which she claimed explained why the voter wasn't allowed to vote. I took one look at the document but didn't recognize it; at least from a quick glance, it didn't seem to have anything to do with elections at all. So I asked the official if she might explain why she thought this document was so important. She responded by repeatedly and loudly asking me if I knew how to read,* and snatched the document away from me.

After some more nonsense, including a berating telephone call from the girlfriend of the ward boss/drug kingpin, I finally convinced the officials to let the voter cast a provisional ballot. Alleged Judge No Habla Ingles handed the voter a provisional ballot form and told him to fill it out on a table around which several people were standing, including the officials who had bitterly opposed his voting at all. I asked if maybe there was someplace he could vote that was a little more, y'know, secret, but I was told there was no such place (this polling place was a school, and the polling station took up perhaps 1% of the space inside the building). The officials eventually agreed to let the voter fill out his ballot on a table a few feet away.

The provisional ballot includes the ballot form itself, as well as a special sealed envelope so as to preserve the secrecy of the ballot. Alleged Judge No Habla Ingles ordered the voter not to put the ballot in the envelope, however, or to put his envelope in the ballot box. Instead, she ordered him to hand the unsealed envelope to her, and she would "deal with it."

I love democracy.

*For the record: I do know how to read.

[Deadend]

Damn Onxian, where the hell did you have to go? Sounds like Africa (all the voting trouble and civil war) except they don't have provisional votes.

I really do not like the way voting infrastructure in the US is, as it's very fractured and very stupid on every level.

[LongStepMantis]

I shall use this thread to post my own election shenanigan story.

*story*

I love democracy.

*For the record: I do know how to read.

Please tell me that someone, somewhere, at least cared that this happened.
Your superiors, a fucking policeman, someone. :eek:

I'm just saying if that's how it ended, I'm severely disappointed that it could be so easily, and so obviously ignored voter fraud. Where the hell did this happen? Tehran? ;)

I must have closure!

[cp#]

Please tell me that someone, somewhere, at least cared that this happened.
Your superiors, a fucking policeman, someone. :eek:

I'm just saying if that's how it ended, I'm severely disappointed that it could be so easily, and so obviously ignored voter fraud. Where the hell did this happen? Tehran? ;)

I must have closure!

Oh you don't know? No one cares. Your voted don't count. See every "recount" ever

[Oxonian]

Please tell me that someone, somewhere, at least cared that this happened.
I'm reasonably sure the vote didn't get counted. I don't know what happened to the election officials. The ward boss/drug kingpin eventually pled guilty to bribery in an unrelated case and was sentenced to three years in prison.

All this happened in Philadelphia, "The Birthplace of America," "The Cradle of Liberty."

[LongStepMantis]

I'm reasonably sure the vote didn't get counted. I don't know what happened to the election officials. The ward boss/drug kingpin eventually pled guilty to bribery in an unrelated case and was sentenced to three years in prison.

All this happened in Philadelphia, "The Birthplace of America," "The Cradle of Liberty."

Well nvm, now it's all making sense.

Philly is becoming more and more of a shithole in a real hurry. Sad for a city with such significance in our history.

As Lewis Black says:
Sad, but true. Sad, but fucking true.