About 300 election investigators assigned on duty today at Chicago

Tuesday 6th November, 2012

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From Mildred Siabi-Mensah, GNA Special Correspondent in Chicago, USA (Courtesy of US Embassy)

 

Chicago, Nov. 6, GNA - The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners have posted 300 election investigators to the 2000 precincts to work to ensure a trouble and fraud-free elections.

 

Some of the investigators are assigned to wards whiles others would be making unannounced visits and inspections of polling places and responding to calls from voters and elections judges for assistance.

 

Mr. Langdon Neal, Chairman of the Board, who gave an overview of the 2012 general elections at a briefing in Chicago on Tuesday said the board had a nearly full complement of Republican and Democrats judges of elections for each precinct with over 200 stand-by judges.

 

A total of 1,364,723 Chicagoans are registered to vote in Tuesday elections with over 17,000 polling workers out of which 2000 are high school students. The city has printed its ballot papers in four different languages to encourage people of other dialect to cast their ballot.

 

In the US system of voting, persons who claim to be legally registered but whose record could not be found on voting day are allowed to cast what is called a provisional ballot, which is kept separately and the election authority has 14 days to determine if the voter qualified and whether the ballot could be count.

 

Mr. Neal said voters who might witness any act of irregularity or encounter any problem should make a formal complaint to the Board.

 

Meanwhile, both candidates in this presidential race in the US have carried out extensive campaign activities to encourage their followers as well as swing and undecided voters to vote.

 

President Obama is expected tonight at his hometown, Chicago where he may play basket ball with old time friends as he watches the results come in.

 

GNA