Thursday, May 21, 2015

ideas for improving the integrity of elections in Chicago

Last night, a group of people met to discuss the how to make Chicago elections more "free & fair". This blog entry contains some ideas I have. I have ranked the ideas (roughly) by how many votes they seem like they would affect (based on my intuition).

Outline:
  1. Everyone in polling place has to be clearly identified.
  2. FBI hotline for situations where someone has already voted for a voter.
  3. Precincts with large numbers of provisional ballots should be audited.
  4. Require Chicago Board of Elections to report on the adequacy of the resources provided.
  5. Or get federal courts to assign a monitor, like Shakman did for City of Chicago hiring.
  6. Rules for ballot pick-up.
  7. Independent election judges: create a process for people to become judges at specific precincts without going through either the Democratic or Republican committeeman.
  8. Pass law that allows judges to penalize campaigns that violate the law.
  9. There should be a conference held in Chicago on how to best protect seniors & the disabled from being controlled or abused in elections.
  10. To make a nominating petition challenge, the plaintiff has to be a candidate in the race to have standing. 
  11. There should be a penalty for failed nominating petition challenges.
See details below.