i preface this story by saying that i worked this polling place in 2 muni elections last year, and would have been there but for ill health. i worked with this judge, and i think this was plain stupidity. i don't think the guy was dishonest. just stupid, and cocky. above all i point out that he is a republican. apparently, it is not possible to underestimate the stupidity of republicans.
The bizarre election-day breakdown that made Chicago a worldwid laughingstock started a little after 6 AM on February 5, when Angel Burkhardt went to her polling place in the 42nd precinct of the 49th Ward, firehouse at 1723 W. Greenleaf
An election judge gave her a ballot and a pen, but when Burkhardt tried to use it the pen made no mark. When she asked him for another, he told her she didn’t need one. And then he uttered the words that will live on in infamy. As Burkhardt recalls it: “He said, ‘It’s a magic pen’—his words exactly—‘that uses invisible ink.’”
Burkhardt says she looked at her blank ballot, then looked back at the judge, incredulous. Was this some kind of joke? “He said that they had been told by authorities that these were magic pens,” she says. “And he insisted the voting machines would read the marks even though the ink was invisible.”
To prove his point, she says, the judge fed her ballot into the counting machine, but it was spit back out, indicating that it hadn’t been properly marked. Using a key, the judge manually overrode it, opening the machine and sticking her ballot inside. “See?” he said. “It works.”
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/theworks/080221/
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