Politics As Usual In Cicero As Election Nears

By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 19, 2013 3:45PM

Voters in Cicero will head to the polls to vote for their town president Feb. 26 and there have been so many rumors of voter intimidation and town employees campaigning for incumbent Larry Dominick while on the clock we wouldn’t be surprised to hear tales of precinct workers leading voters to the ballot box at gunpoint next week. Let’s catch you up on the latest tales of politics as usual in Cicero, shall we?

Congressman Luis Gutierrez and Juan Ochoa, one of Dominick’s opponents, called for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and County Clerk David Orr to investigate charges of voter intimidation in the race. The two claim Cicero community service workers of telling Latino voters they would be committing voter fraud by requesting mail-in ballots. Gutierrez called on Alvarez and Orr to “protect the voters against this infamy of corruption” while Ochoa accused Dominick of using town resources “to intimidate and suppress the Latino vote.”

The Ochoa campaign claims to have a dossier detailing numerous instances of voter intimidation, including town community service officers who dressed up as police officers and went door to door to voters who requested mail-in ballots. Ochoa also claimed sources within the Cicero Police Department told him patrol officers received an order last week not to police reports of any service officers doing political work on duty.

“87 percent of Cicero residents are Latino, and 75 percent of Cicero’s registered voters are Latino,” said Ochoa. “Thousands of Latino voters are planning to vote by mail to bring real change to Cicero in the coming week. Foul play like this is surely aimed at suppressing and subverting the Latino vote, and we will not tolerate it.”

Gutierrez’s and Ochoa’s plea to Alvarez and Orr was slightly behind the curve. Orr announced Monday he was already aware of the voter intimidation rumors and sent a letter to Cicero town attorney Michael Del Galdo.

“This could easily be construed as an attempt at voter intimidation,’’ Orr wrote in the letter. “You and your clients are entitled to gather information regarding any aspect of an election, but no campaign is entitled to use the resources of the Town in the process.’’

Orr also noted he’s received complaints from all sides in the election, some of which were forwarded to Alvarez’s office and the Justice Department.

Cicero town spokesman Ray Hanania doesn’t deny the service workers were out on the streets, but they were doing so to collect their own charges of voter intimidation. Mail in ballot requests have increased dramatically for the election, but with some of the applications registered to vacant lots and homes, according to Hanania.

“We sent these people in there because after dealing with Orr’s office for four weeks, he said in order for us to have a complaint, we’d have to have the evidence and we’d have to collect it,’’ Cicero spokesman Ray Hanania said. “We didn’t ask anybody who they voted for. We asked, ‘Did they request an absentee ballot?’ ’’