False Robocalls That Wreaked Havoc On Chicago Elections Linked To GOP Activists

Kira Lerner
Posted on November 12, 2014 at 12:35 pm Updated: November 12, 2014 at 1:24 pm
.
Chicago election judges received misleading and factually incorrect robocalls before the midterm, causing close to 2,000 of them to not show up on Election Day. As a criminal investigation gets underway, the Chicago Sun-Times has tied the calls to two Republican activists while the Republican Party has denied involvement and distanced itself from the party members who it claims acted alone.
.
An unknown number of election judges received one or more automated phone calls that informed them about an additional required training session or told them they needed to vote a certain way in order to keep their position. As a result, polling places across the city were understaffed and lines reached seven hours in some precincts. A smaller number of voters were turned away from certain locations.
.
The city was forced to dispatch standby election judges when some polling places had just one or no election judges present at 6 a.m. when polls were scheduled to open. At the time, the Chicago Board of Elections said it didn't know who made the calls or why they were sent out. The Cook County State's Attorney has launched a criminal investigation and Mayor Rahm Emanuel called for hearings on the robocalls.
.
"There's nothing more important than the integrity of the democratic electoral process," Emanuel said when he and the City Council passed a resolution calling for hearings. "Somebody called with the intent to create confusion."
.
{Source}