Wilson Accuses Emanuel Of Dirty Tricks With Campaign Mailings

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 23, 2015 8:00PM

Maybe there’s some substance to Willie Wilson’s mayoral campaign after all. The millionaire businessman and his handlers have accused Mayor Rahm Emanuel of voter suppression by using a mailing sent to voters to encourage absentee voting.

The mailing from the Emanuel campaign contains a letter from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White informing residents of their right to cast their vote via mail, along with a vote by mail application and an enclosed envelope for voters to send their applications to Emanuel campaign headquarters, where the applications will be ostensibly submitted to the Chicago Board of Elections and, after verifying applicants are legally on the voter rolls, absentee ballots will be mailed to those requesting them.

(If you are voting by absentee ballot, by the way, you need to have it postmarked by Feb. 23.)

This could be nothing more than the Emanuel camp working to encourage voting by mail, knowing things like inclement weather (or an unpopular incumbent mayor) could keep people away from the polling places Feb. 24. But election attorney Frank Avila, working for Wilson, believes the mailing is an attempt to suppress the vote next month.

“If not illegal, it definitely is unethical,” Avila said.

This isn’t the first bit of media marketing from the Emanuel camp that walked an ethical tightrope. A mailer sent last week so closely resembled a Chicago magazine cover—right down to the logo—that Chicago’s editor, Beth Fenner took to Twitter to let people know the magazine did not endorse political candidates.

The Emanuel campaign also produced a TV spot showing ABC 7 anchor Ron Magers, the most visible news anchor in Chicago, talking about an Emanuel-backed program to increase enrollment at Chicago’s community colleges. ABC 7 president and GM John Idler told the Emanuel campaign he was not pleased with the inference the station was endorsing the mayor. That spot also featured sound bites from ABC 7's Leah Hope and WGN TV anchor Micah Materre. (WGN president and GM Greg Easterly also protested Materre's use in the spot.)

It may be legal, but Wilson’s concerns about the possibility of voter suppression and fraud are legitimate, especially among African-American voters who supported Emanuel four years ago who may want to make their dissatisfaction known at the ballot box. There are also concerns that absentee ballots may theoretically wind up back at Emanuel campaign headquarters, never to be forwarded to the people requesting them.

Emanuel and Wilson have been subtly antagonizing each other for weeks. The Emanuel campaign filed a challenge to Wilson’s petition signatures last month, which Wilson claimed was racially motivated. The mayor later had the challenge pulled when it was revealed his attorneys were about to subpoena 500 West Side residents to testify under oath that their signatures were legitimate.

Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes uploaded images of the Emanuel mailers which you can view here, here, here and here.