PADDED ELECTION REGISTERS.
In the primary election, held September 15, 1910, one third of the vote cast in the First ward was made by “repeaters” or personators, in the names of individuals who did not live at the addresses from which they were recorded as voting.
This terrible condition was unearthed by investigators working for Arthur Burrage Farwell, president of the Chicago Law and Order League. This fact was ascertained by a comparison of the poll books used at the primary with the records of a house-to-house canvass of the ward.
In March of that year the same reform organization caused the erasure of 702 illegal names from the registry books of the notorious First ward. In a single precinct in that ward, with a registration of 668, 269 names were those of “floaters” and “repeaters.” These were stricken off.
Investigation before that September primary in the First Ward showed 10,996 names on the registry list. It also showed that 5,552 of the names were of persons who did not live at the addresses given, but who cast their purchased ballots at the primary election!
Similar conditions exist in the other lodging house wards, previously mentioned, and also known as the “river” wards, because they are separated by the Chicago river, the last resting place of many revolters from the system.
The “debauchery of the ballot” is too mild a term for this crime.