Robo-calls allegedly made to election judges investigated

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Cook County state's attorney is launching a criminal investigation of pre-election robo-calls that were allegedly made to Chicago election judges to undermine the process.

Tuesday's voting problems not only include election judges failing to show up on Election Day, but also long lines for a new program that allows voters to register and vote on the same day. Chicago election officials say every election throws them a new curve ball, one they hope to learn from.

The counting continues in Chicago as the Board of Elections process absentee, provisional, same-day registration ballots and others. Election officials say there are lessons learned about some of Tuesday's bumps in the road, including why so many judges failed to show up. Some may have been scared away by false robo-calls. The state's attorney's office is investigating and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling on a federal investigation as well.

"Somebody called to create confusion, not to have a smooth running process. Who did? How did they get the list? Who paid for it? We have to get to the bottom of it," said Mayor Emanuel.

Five Chicago polling places opened late on Tuesday because of judge no-shows. While the election board plans to find out exactly why they didn't show up, election officials say the next time, they must line up more back-up judges.

"We will probably have more stand by teams the next time, we went through our first stand by teams by 9:00 a.m.," said Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections.

And the next time, the board of elections plans to have more than five same-day registration voting sites open. Voters stood in line for hours waiting to take advantage of a pilot program signed into law by Gov. Quinn that allows people to register and vote on Election Day. At 3 a.m. Wednesday, after a nine hour wait, Decorda McGee was the last person to finally vote.

"I wasn't going to be denied my right to vote. That was the sentiment of everyone in there. We're going to wait it out as long as we have to, to vote. We weren't going to be denied our right to vote," McGee said.

Election officials say they underestimated the amount of people that decided to procrastinate by registering and voting at the last minute.

"Could we have added more equipment? Yes. Did we have any reason to believe we needed more equipment? No," said Allen.

Chicago election officials say over 2,000 voters registered and voted on the same day. In suburban Cook County, over 3,600 voters took advantage of same-day registration on Tuesday. While there were some long lines in Evanston, Cook County officials say they had no problems because 18 sites were open, compared to Chicago's five.