Gov. Pritzker Rejected Request For Holding Vote-By-Mail Election

CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration last week rejected calls from the Chicago Election Board to postpone today's primary election, officials said.

Election board spokesman Jim Allen said requests were made to the governor's legal team about urging either the postponement of the election, holding a vote-by-mail only contest or changing precinct-by-precinct election polling to another system.

Those suggestions were rejected.

"Quite honestly, we were on the phone with the governor’s staff about a week ago, hours after this was declared a global pandemic and we were urging the postponement of the election, the abandonment of the polling place model of voting and the conversion to vote-by-mail for the safety for the voting public," Allen said.

"So, to come out at this moment and say there should be gatherings of 50 or more people and that even small establishments need to be closed, and to say there needs to be wiping down of screens is, well, I’ll let you come to your own conclusions. But it’s an interesting turn of events."

Gov. Prtizker's chief of staff Anne Caprara responded on Twitter.

"This is a lie. And frankly, given what we are dealing with in this moment, I’m disgusted that Jim Allen would lie like this. We offered them the national guard, young volunteers and assistance with keeping polling places clean. Statement coming in a few minutes from our office," she wrote.

Caprara also tweeted, "The Governor has been trying to balance continuity of government, not disenfranchising people who already voted, avoiding a legal crisis & keeping everyone safe. The Chicago Board of Elections have been worried about scoring cheap political points."

So far, there were about 200 precinct polling places that were not open at the start of voting today. A "tsunami" of election judges canceled plans to work election day over fear of the new coronavirus spread, officials said.

Allen said Pritzker's legal staff didn't head the election board's warnings during a March 11 call.

"We predicted there would be fear among voters. That there would be fear, legitimate concerns among our poll workers and that we would lose polling places. At that point in the phone call we were told that 24 precincts was not that significant. And we told them this was the tip of the iceberg. It ended up being 200," Allen said.

The projected result in Chicago: Despite record early voting and mail-in ballots, voter turn out is expected to be low, Allen said.

It's an Election Day scenario that election officials say could have been avoided.

“There was nothing magical about March 17 unless you’re St. Patrick. No one was going to get elected today. These were nominations," Allen said.

Allen said election officials were prohibited from raising their concerns publicly for fear of being accused of tampering with primary voting.

"We were caught over the last seven days in a Catch 22 where we were not allowed to really say anything because it could be viewed as voter suppression if we’re talking about the possibility of postponing an election," Allen said. "If you look back to the governor’s remarks last Thursday he made a point of saying we all must speak in one voice … with regard to elections. Well, elections are actually about making sure everybody’s voice is heard and everybody has a chance to speak. So, we respectfully disagree with that perspective. But we were told the election must go on."