Precinct Captains Can Play Mr. Clean

To keep the voter rolls free of ghosts and duplicateregistrations, city election officials rely on the workings of anold-fashioned machine - the Democratic ward organization.

For this year's elections, city officials did not conduct a mailcanvass, in effect leaving the chore to precinct captains. But onlya handful of wards still have effective operations, and the voterlist is the dirtiest in years.

The city's reliance on precinct captains raises questions aboutthe role of politics in what should be the non-political maintenanceof voter rolls.

Kit Duffy, president of the election watchdog Project LEAP,cites mail service, mobility of residents, and precinct captains asthe three key factors that determine the number of duplicates anddead on ward voter rolls.

Too often, she said, it is left up to the precinct captain tomake sure only real people register and vote.

A Chicago Sun-Times analysis found that the 10 wards with thefewest duplicate registrations are run by well-oiled, establishedpolitical machines. The wards also include older, white communitiesfilled with homeowners.

"They all have the mechanics, know-how and smarts to go afterthe deadwood on the rolls," said Ald. William J.P. Banks, whose 36thWard is among the top 10.

Precinct captains are rewarded for a high-percentage turnout ofregistered voters, so it is to their benefit to keep the voter rollsclean, Banks said.

Banks has 1,100 captains and a computer that keeps track ofvoters. "We can even tell you everything down to the names of thechildren and what sports teams they like," he said.

But in wards without strong political organizations, duplicatesand "dead" voters abound. And the 10 wards with the most duplicatesare either recent creations of remapping or are divided by strugglesamong political factions. They also are African American orHispanic, are poorer and have more renters.

The 35th Ward on the Northwest Side has the most duplicates - atenth of its 22,887 registered voters. Its Democratic committeemanis under indictment, and the organization is fractured.

A spokesman for 35th Ward aldermanic candidate Louis Lara saidhis workers challenged just 150 suspect registrations for next week'selection because they started checking the lists too late to completepaper work.

Fortunato Rodriguez, a campaign worker in the 35th Ward beforethe primary, said he found 146 invalid voters by walking just half aprecinct. The effort is overwhelming for anything less than awell-established political organization, he said.

The 23rd Ward on the Southwest Side had the cleanest voter list,with fewer than 2 percent of its 32,577 registered voters duplicated.Its Democratic committeeman, Rep. William Lipinski (D-Ill.), runsone of the city's strongest political organizations, recording a 70percent turnout in February.

But Anita Cummings, an unsuccessful 23rd Ward aldermaniccandidate, said some captains knocked too many names off voter rolls.

"Dozens, dozens of people were purged from the rolls, eventhough they still lived there," she said. "They were oursupporters.