Scores of Election Judges Failed to Show Up in Chicago After “Malicious” Robocalls

Election Day did not going smoothly in Illinois, as scores of election judges failed to show up for work after mysterious calls went out with false information.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

The calls indicated that the judges had to vote a certain way in order to work on election day and that additional training was required of them — which was not true.

[Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman Jim]Allen said he's never seen anything like what happened Tuesday. In one case, election authorities had to break down a door to open a polling place where no judges showed.

"I covered politics for a long time in Chicago and around the state, all of you have. This one is a new dirty trick," Allen said.

Allen put the number of no-shows at 2000 — at least, but said it was likely far higher.

"You're interfering with the orderly conduct of a federal election in our opinion," Allen said. "You're telling people how to vote in a federal election and implying that it has to do with their employment. You're also interfering with the orderly conduct of an election. When you're telling people how they vote and saying it's a condition of their employment. When you're telling people they have to attend a special training and it's not true and it causes confusion and causes them to quit.

"Whether by design or by idiocy, this is malicious."

The calls, which seemed as though they came from the Chicago Election Board, were affiliated with one political party, although Allen would not disclose which one.