Illinois Election: Some Chicago voters don't receive second page of ballot, end up half-voting
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A mistake by election judges in Chicago Tuesday could leave some voters partially out of luck.
As CBS 2 Investigator Dorothy Tucker reported, this year's ballot has two double-sided pages – marked as Ballot A and Ballot B. For some reason at 24 precincts, election judges only handed out Ballot A.
That means some voters never got Ballot B – which has all the judges up for retention.
According to election officials, some voters recognized the mistake immediately and complained. They were able to get the second ballot and vote for everyone. But those who didn't catch the mistake left the polling place and only half-voted.
So what happens? if you think you only received one ballot, authorities are telling those voters not to return to the polling places. Instead, they want you to call the Chicago Board of Elections and complain.
But here's the problem - authorities admit it's going to be almost impossible to prove a voter only received one ballot. So at the end of the day, those voters are pretty much out of luck.
The Chicago Board of elections says it will try to verify complaints and see what they can do. But they admit it won't be easy.
"This is again why it's so very important for people to contact us first, because then the Election Central can follow up with that specific location and have somebody on site talk to judge," said Chicago Board of Election spokesman Max Bever.
Officials said they caught the mistake shortly after 6 a.m. and sent a text to all judges after 7 a.m. So this was going on for about an hour.
However, elections authorities say they don't really know how many voters were affected.
But if you think you were, you are asked to call the Chicago Board of Elections. Their main number is (312) 269-7900.
Also, note that if a voter only filled out one page of the ballot, that page will still be counted.