Sharon Meroni of Defend the Vote addresses Crystal Lake Tea Party members.

Without ballot integrity, democracy disappears.

If you can’t be sure your vote is being counted correctly and only votes of others voting legally are being counted as well, what trust would you have in the governmental system?

The Crystal Lake Tea Party met last night at the Park District’s Park Place to hear the findings of those who have investigated the situation. Below is Tea Party leader Mary Alger’s report on what happened:

“Citizens gathered at Park Place in Crystal Lake, IL and were completely drawn in by 3 speakers that presented the problems we face in election integrity and were given a solid citizen action and legal plan to fix it.

“Sharon Meroni of www.defendthevote.com tracked election processes & procedures in the City of Chicago which took her on an odyssey of adventures and discovered jaw dropping revelations.

Chicago Republican Election Attorney Steve Bolton speaks about ballot integrity problems of early voting.

“Unsecured ballots, illegal election workers, and problems with the voting machines were but a few of the problems found.

“Potentially the biggest problem is that there is virtually no auditing of early voting although Illinois law says that 5% of all votes must be audited.

“Based on many of these findings, Chicago GOP Election attorney, Steve
Boulton, spoke of his bringing several legal actions to the Chicago Board of
Elections to seek remedy.

“His letter can be found here.

“Evert Evertsen, a naturalized US citizen since 1984, knows how precious the
right to vote in this country is and has been protecting the process for
seven years by being an election judge and training poll watchers.

“These 3 speakers compelled all citizens to get involved in securing the
voting process. Sign up sheets were filled out that will allow citizens to
become highly trained and effective poll watchers, election judges, learn to
use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to seek election information and
to clean up the voter registration rolls.

“These actions will become a new focus of TEA Parties throughout the country and with www.illinoistea.org affiliated TEA Parties in our state.

“Simply put, without the sanctity and assurance of our vote being counted we lose our Republic.

One of the missions of the TEA Party is taking citizen action from the street corner and bringing it to the polling place.

“We will start in Illinois of all places to show the nation that it CAN be done starting HERE, starting NOW.”

Mary Alger
Crystal Lake TEA Party