The Tribune predicts mass confusion in Chicago polling places because remaps have split hundreds of precincts into different congressional, legislative and judicial districts. Then you editorialize (Feb. 18) that police officers should be eliminated from most of our polling places, starting March 17, to save money in a tight city budget.
Project LEAP (Legal Elections in All Precincts) urges that police be kept in the polling places March 17 and that any alternative plan be carefully researched and worked out before it is put in place for a future election. We agree that some ”polling places of Chicago have become rather sedate,” but the presence of uniformed police officers has helped to make them that way!
And whose ”recent listing of serious voting complaints” would be used in placing police officers, anyway? Project LEAP`s list is many times longer than the list at the Chicago Board of Elections.
The current Board of Elections proposal for roving police patrols ignores the absence of telephones at nearly half of the 2,458 voting sites. How, and whom, will election judges call for help?
The calming, law-abiding effect of having the police officer present is absolutely essential. The deterrent they provide cannot be eliminated in a wholesale manner.
The Tribune`s endorsement of a current plan to reduce police coverage is premature at best. City government should not try to solve its budget problems by pressuring the Chicago Board of Elections into giving up voter, and vote, safety.
