From the Gordon Campaign: Electioneering: noun, persuasion of voters in a political campaign. [syn: campaigning]
American Heritage Dictionary
The current 49th Ward alderman has been accused numerous times this election season for personally electioneering in violation of the rules at polling places, and for his campaign’s alleged orchestration of voting irregularities.
In the Chicago Municipal Election on February 27, volunteers for Citizens To Elect Don Gordon and other aldermanic campaigns reported numerous instances of illegal electioneering by the alderman inside 49th Ward polling places. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Cook County State’s Attorney recorded our complaints and have or are still investigating many.
Electioneering is illegal when it happens in or within 100 feet of a polling place. We have seen a range of forbidden activities here, including the alderman delivering boxes of donuts with his name on them to polling places, stopping voters and speaking to them as they wait to vote, and parading in the polling place shaking hands and announcing his title and name.
Several complaints were made about an election judge who was electioneering for Moore on March 26, the very first day of the Runoff Election’s Early Voting at our ward’s Pottawattomie Park polling place. A range of complaints were made, and they continued to the last day of Early Voting on April 12. On Friday, April 13 and Saturday, April 14 voting occurred at local nursing and senior citizens homes. Again, our volunteer poll watchers lodged complaints against the alderman and voting irregularities at these polling places.
In several instances, 1) the alderman was asked by a State’s Attorney official to leave a poling place, 2) was escorted out, and 3) election judges were admonished to enforce the board’s rules. We applaud the majority of election judges who work under incredible pressure and try to do a good job.
BLOGNOTES: I've been sent a email saying the lady in the photograph with Alderman Moore is none other than Brenda Dunkins who concocted that fruity banana story. The tipster also mentioned she may have be involved with the pink post card mail fraud/identity thief mailer Alderman Moore won't talk about.
If this is Brenda Dunkins, this lady should be barred from any polling place after she casts her one and only vote. If she is a poll-watcher, she needs to sit on the corner and keep her big trap shut like the other poll-watchers are told to do. If she is a election judge, her credentials should be taken away. She can't possilbly be bias in her desision making. Her track record clearly shows that.
2 comments:
This cannot continue and the voters are the only people who can do something about it.
I suggest that every person who sees Joe campaigning illegally at a polling place immediately take one of two measures:
1. Immediately take a photo of Joe in action and call 911 while shouting at the top of your lungs that Alderman Moore is there illegally and must leave NOW!
2. Take hold of Joe by one of his spindly little arms and forcibly remove his fat behind from the premises. Let him call 911 and explain what happend, as well as where he was when "assaulted."
This cannot continue and we residents are the only ones who are going to do anything about it.
I have a suggestion on how to send a very clear message to Joe Moore as to how actions can have unfortunate consequences, and as far as I can tell, does not violate the laws on electioneering.
Someone needs to go to the library and find a photo of the late 24th Ward Ald. Ben Lewis, who was unable to celebrate his re-election back in 1963, because someone had shot him dead in his office (a crime that has never been solved). Word has it though that Ald. Lewis thought he was going to run everything in his ward when he met his demise.
Make copies of the photo and stick them on buttons so that the buttons have no text, just the photo of the last Chicago Alderman to be removed by bullets rather than ballots, death or the US Attorney's office.
Then before Lying Joe can do something illegal on Tuesday, someone wearing that button should politely explain to him just who the guy on the button was. It would be clear that Lewis' face does not constitute electioneering; after all, the poor man has been dead for 44 years. But I suspect it would send a message to Lying Joe that there is a limit to the BS he can pull on a community and that he passed that point some time ago. Giving a concession speech on Tuesday evening is clearly a better alternative than the grisly fate of Ald. Lewis (and I detest violence). I think even Lying Joe will get the message.
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