By Mark Weyermuller -
Presidential candidate Donald Trump is claiming that America's election process is rigged. For some reason, his message is resonating. This is especially true in Chicago where the joke is "Vote early and often." They also say, "I see dead people… voting." You might remember that from the film "The Sixth Sense."
This year especially, this may not be funny. I agree with Mr Trump – our elections are rigged.
What does rigged mean? This according to my online dictionary: "Rigged is defined as something in the proper order for use, or is something that is fixed in a dishonest way to guarantee a desired outcome. A contest where the winner is predetermined beforehand is an example of a contest that is rigged."
As far as I remember, I have voted in every primary and general election, including municipals contests, since turning 18 years old. I have also been an election judge a few times. I have serious issues with the process in the Chicago area, which at the very minimum, has the appearance of impropriety and on the other extreme may contain massive voter fraud.
For example, this week I received these voter registration cards in my mailbox at my office in a residential building on the near north side of Chicago. Two of the cards were people who had moved and the third was a person who is deceased. The deceased person actually never lived at the address listed. A previous tenant here had a change of address filed to this address to settle their estate, routing the deceased person's mail here.
Is this a system to automatically register people to vote based on a postal change of address form? It makes sense to me that a deceased person could not fill out voter registrations or change of address forms. Yet, this is Chicago.
Another issue I have discussed is the number of polling places and how the equipment is secured. For instance, in the 1200 block of North State Street, there are two polling places across the street from each other about 90 feet apart. They say they are for separate precincts. I feel the more locations, the more potential for fraud, not to mention costs.
Every election, I see the voting equipment delivered days and even a week ahead of voting day. They are left in unsecured locations like schools and park district gyms where anybody could obtain access. The voting storage is often secured with a plastic tie that can be cut with scissors.
There are many solutions which could help make elections much more honest and transparent.
Showing a photo Identification is the obvious deterrent to voter fraud. It is quite unusual for anybody not to have a photo ID. In today's world, you need it for travel, entering office and government buildings, to do financial transactions, buy liquor and cigarettes, and receive government assistance. The argument is that people don't have them is ridiculous. Of course, a provisional ballot could be issued so these votes can be more highly scrutinized.
The truth is for everybody who fails to prove their identity, another legitimate voter disenfranchised. One voter who may not have a photo ID would be an illegal or legal alien who of course is not entitled to vote. This problem has been compounded by giving driver's license to "undocumented immigrants " therefore making them documented. An obvious solution is no driver's licenses for non-citizens or at the very least, the license should be a different color and perhaps printed vertically like they are in Illinois for drivers under 21 years old.
Another issue is early voting can lead to massive fraud. We have had absentee ballots as long as I remember. Why not keep that system as the only way to vote early. Same day voter registration is another potential spot for fraud as on voting day it seems impossible to verify if people are voting multiple times.
At this time of year we often kid about "dead voters" especially here in Cook County. In reality, it's not laughing matter. The county could easily purge these voters because death records are fairly well maintained yet they seem to have no inclination to do it. Again, a voter photo ID would help eliminate many of these issues adding honesty, integrity, and transparency to the process.
Today I saw on the news that it may be illegal to take photos especially selfies in a polling place. It appears celebrity Justin Timberlake is being investigated for taking a selfie while voting. It seems crazy, as we always see the candidates themselves photographed casting their votes on the TV news and print media. It seems odd to me we can photograph police making arrests and doing investigations yet we cannot photograph polling places to document any possible crimes.
Possible headline: "Mark Weyermuller arrested taking a Selfie."
As a journalist, I want to able to photograph the polling locations especially since it's a public place. My intent is not to photograph ballots but possibly people voting in multiple locations. Here's an idea, body cameras on all election judges? How else could we document fraud? You tell me.
I wrote about selfies at the polls last year here:
I have many concerns for elections and the voting process especially here in the Chicago area. I agree our election system is rigged and we need to fix it. Early voting is taking place now with the General Election on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.
Mark Weyermuller is a small business person, real estate professional, and conservative activist in Chicago. He is a citizen journalist and regular contributor to Illinois Review. Mark can be heard weekly on the radio in a "man on the street segment" at 10:31pm as a regular guest on the Stephanie Trussell Show heard Sunday nights 9pm-midnight on WLS 890-AM.
If your parents are deceased, lived in Illinois, and you know their zip code and birth date, you can check to see if they are still registered at the link below:
https://ova.elections.il.gov/RegistrationLookup.aspx
Actually you could look up any deceased person if you knew their birthday and zip code.
Rigged Elections – This covers a lot of professional politics-as-usual! The Primary election is as such.
Taxpayers pay for the process of professional political parties to select who is the person so anointed by the political machine. That should be an expense entirely borne by the political party and ALL the candidates included in the General election and ‘graded’ in an ‘alternate vote’ i.e. instant runoff election process to determine who, which candidate, wins 50%+ of All of the candidates.
CONSIDER, “If you knew on [your state’s] Primary Election day (back then) ‘what you do know today (now)’ … who would you have voted for?”
If all those candidates are the multiple choice [best thru worse] what ‘grade’ would you have registered for each of them?
Rigged Elections: includes that the professional politicians are only interested in who ‘wins’ [that is to say] who obtains the power of the elected position. However, there is HUGE value to the voter electorate to reflect their judgment on the relative merits of all of the candidates so to have an overview of the multiple positions [and personalities] of the candidates and derive the thinking and feelings of the voter electorate.
An election is a costly effort and their is much more value to voter electorate overview than simply pick “who won”. Have a nice Day:)
Nice job Mark but you left out one of the biggest fraud schemes which is and has been fixing voting machines to record only one candidate or party regardless of who was voted for. This problem seems to be endemic in swing states who use machines owned by dubious people like Soros.
The Chicago Board of Elections does an awful job of purging the voter rolls of persons who are ineligible to vote for reasons related to mental health issues.
I am personally aware of a person declared legally incompetent years ago who continues to receive election related mail.
What goes on during nursing home voting?