Columnists: Poll Watching, Chicago-Style

While most pundits delivered weighty post-election analyses, Columnist Robert Novak provided one of the most memorable stories by going out on the beat at the precinct level. Instead of spending election night in front of a TV set, he prowled the polling places on Chicago’s heavily Negro, heavily Democratic West Side. Local politicians bar newsmen from the polls, but Novak got poll watcher’s credentials from a friendly Republican, and these enabled him to observe what he calls “democracy, Chicago-style.” Wrote Novak, in a column signed by himself and his partner, Rowland Evans: “What we saw showed that lurid Republican charges, leveled for years, have not been exaggerated.”

In a typical precinct in the 24th Ward, he reported, the voting was dominated by one man, the Democratic precinct captain. “A nod from the precinct captain allowed an unregistered voter to vote by merely signing an affidavit. Whether he might vote in another precinct as well would be impossible to determine. Even more remarkable was what happened inside the voting booth. Without asking whether any voter wanted help, the election judge entered the booth with every voter and instructed him to pull the Democratic straight-party lever, breaking the state law. If the voter tarried more than 30 seconds and thus appeared to be splitting his ticket, the judge would reach inside to tap him on the shoulder or even re-enter the booth.”

After they cast their ballots, many voters were given white chits by the precinct captains. Chit in hand, each voter then left the polling place and entered an alley. Novak did not follow for fear of his own safety, but he implied that Chicago still has the best voters that money can buy. This was the kind of performance that has come to be expected of the Evans-Novak team, which avoids pontificating and concentrates on examining the inner machinery of politics. Evans and Novak were not alone in discovering election irregularities in Chicago. The Chicago Daily News reported that Democratic precinct workers were rounding up derelicts from the streets and paying them 500 each to register, even though they had not been in Chicago long enough to satisfy the residence requirement. Nevertheless, the 1968 elections apparently fell short of previous years when it came to dilly-Daleying. “This was the cleanest election we’ve had in Chicago in at least 20 years,” said Charles Barr, head of a group of 5,000 Republicans who policed the polls. In response, Mayor Daley suggested—not without cause—that reporters should investigate why, in the era of the voting machine, officials in some Republican-controlled precincts in Illinois still insist on using paper ballots.