MATERIAL ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON EARLYVOTING MARCH 04 2006

This explains recent communications that I have received over the number of early voting locations used in other urban localities in the 2004 election.

A Cook County board candidate, Forrest Claypool, has filed a Federal lawsuit alleging that the number and location of early voting centers in Cook County has been manipulated so as to benefit regular Democratic voters.

This suit is described here and seems to be different from another suit, this time filed by “several Chicago and suburban residents” alleging voting rights violations in the placement of early voting centers.

Part of the problem appears to be that the Illinois regulations give general guidelines as to how many early voting centers are to be opened and what hours they are to operate, but no set rules. The result is that some areas have weekend voting and some do not; some have widely distributed early voting locations and some do not.