My piece about the strange vote counting in McHenry County in my 1996 Republican Primary Election brought forth the following memory from one of the people who was watching the 1998 centralized vote counting for State Representative in the race between appointed incumbent Mike Brown and newcomer Jack Franks:
Jack Franks
The following is my recollection of the events relating to the 1998 election in which Jack Franks was a candidate:
- Four of us were designated as election authorized observers representing Jack Franks.
- Each of us had experience in computer networks and programming. We were all in business
activities that required that type of knowledge. - We were given an onsite demonstration before the election of the setup and functioning of the vote tabulation device and information that a punch card provided that vote counting program direction.
- During the course of the evening of the vote calculation we discovered that the hard wired network also went directly to Al Jordan’s [County Auditor’s] office along with other computers in the vote counting area. This meant that he could monitor the results and theoretically control the interruption (stopping) of the count. Every stoppage of the vote count made it possible to insert a program card that could control the count method or any other function of the vote counting program.
- The voting machine counting occurs at a very rapid rate and would make seemingly impossible to change a program card without a stoppage. Consequently, it would be very important to have a “stoppage/breakdown” at an important juncture in the voting count process. This certainly cast plausible suspicion upon the computer in Al Jordan’s office
- Previous election observations had revealed unusual shifts in the projected outcome of the results. Therefore, the intensity of onsite observation became very important during stoppages during the night;
- This particular night yielded a victory for Jack Franks….It seems like the close observation by he appointed Jack Franks monitors may have been an important factor…
Other irregularities occurred like unsealed ballot boxes and one delivery of an open ballot box being late because the courier said he stopped of dinner.
I was also given permission by Cathy Schultz to initial all of the seals on all of the ballot boxes after they were counted. I used a ballpoint pen which made an impression on the plastic seals that could be revealed later by rubbing a pencil over them.
Franks did not pull ahead until the last late precinct was counted, which was Tom Schober’s in LITH I believe.
I was standing next to Jack and his dad at the time and congratulated them.
Ironic isn’t it?
This is blog post should be listed in the dictionary next to Fake News.
So a participant doesn’t know what he is talking about?
How absurd.
Mike, was anyone concerned that it was Tom’s precinct that took Jack to a Victory? This would be the fella
that was brought into the Village of Lakewood, to make sure everything was on the up and up, after the Golf
Course fiasco? I do believe his resume had some discrepancies.
Whichever precinct it was, I recall that the last one in, which was late (as referenced above because the judge went to dinner first) was the one that sealed the election for Jack, who won by only about 130 votes.
Interestingly, Mike Brown did not contest the election despite it’s closeness.
This was before the paper ballots were used (punch cards) so the swings on recounts were much larger than today.
I always thought that was odd.
Prior to the election a group of us who were concerned with the voting had tried to get Cathy to institute separate counting for each precinct like in Cook County. She rejected that even though we had arranged to get the machines for free on loan from David Orr, Cook County Clerk (The City of Chicago had a separate Clerk).
That’s how conservatives like Verr, Nuemann, Sanders, etc., in the county ‘lost’ elections in the fixed primaries.
Thank You Mike, and yes DerHubsche, you are correct.
Well Al and Tom are now deceased, who has assumed Al’s position?
I watched what happened to Conservatives, just before the last Primary, with the Slanderous Mailings, so glad Joe is pressing forward to find out who is behind it.
Where is Nygren now?
Just A Thought!