'Get it together': Frustrated voters show up at polling sites to find absentee judges, machines not working
CHICAGO (CBS) -- All throughout the day, viewers have been writing or calling in about polling problems, with reports of no-show judges or machine issues.
CBS 2's Lauren Victory reports from a polling location at Clark and Lake with the latest.
Voting in Morton Grove was off to a bit of a slow start at Golf Middle School on Waukegan Avenue, which is where a viewer tells us she stood around with others for about an hour before giving up.
She said she was told not enough election judges showed up and the machines were having problems. Construction greeted voters at a Chicago polling place near 85th and Phillips.
Crews at Coles Elementary kept working while voters tried to their best to concentrate. Also distracting: The scramble to find enough people to staff this polling location.
Apparently an election judge showed up, looked at all the equipment and took off. The coordinator said teamwork by everyone else helped get these polls open on time.
There were no known issues with the polls at Avalon Park Fine and Performing Arts School, but Jeanette Battle did have a problem with her ballot.
She was supposed to get it in the mail but says it never came. Instead, USPS tracking showed her mail in ballot is stuck at a nearby post office. Battle was able to vote in person, but had to sign an affidavit.
"I'm very frustrated because it should be such an easy process. They've done this before. The election is important to everybody and they should get it together," Battle said.
Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners said it also received several reports of mail-in ballots never making it to the voter. The United States Postal Service said it is investigating.
More than 76,000 mail-in ballots were never returned, but it is unclear how many of those ballots got lost in transit.
