Drunk Illinois Election Judges, Misshapen Ballots Slip Up Primary Polling

Election Judges Show Up Drunk To Illinois Primary Polling Place

While Illinois' primary election Tuesday may have been smooth sailing for Mitt Romney, there were some reports of polling place drama in Cook County.

Particularly, the sites where the Cook County Clerk's office says two election judges showed up drunk, one of whom eventually had to be hospitalized, CBS Chicago reports. Or the polling place where a judge was ordered to stop selling candy to voters.

This isn't the first time judges' rowdiness interfered with an election in Illinois. In 2010, four Chicago election judges were arrested: two for being intoxicated, one for groping a fellow, female judge and another for assaulting a voter in an attempt to reclaim a ballot.

Result returns were also slowed in 25 counties where voting ballots were too large for the scanning machines used to tabulate votes, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The glitch, which affected thousands of ballots in a quarter of the state's counties, was blamed on the graphics company that printed the ballots.

With 24 percent of Chicagoans voting, Tuesday's primary marks the lowest voter turnout in a presidential primary election in 70 years, Langdon Neal, chairman of the Chicago Board of Elections, told CBS Chicago.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot