Will County Gazette

The Will County GOP is protesting the influence of poll watcher Chuck Pelkie in the county.

Last week, Pelkie, head supervisor of the Will County Elections Department, challenged a poll watcher from the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Amendment. 

Democrat House Speaker Mike Madigan is behind the so-called progressive tax which the poll watcher was there to monitor. 

“When Will County is the only county to throw out a statewide civic group's poll watcher, ignores state law requiring website and personal notice of the time, place and location of the handling of ballots, and allows ballots arriving unsealed to be counted, the integrity of the election can no longer be guaranteed,” Will County GOP Chairman George Pearson said in an email to supporters. 

Pearson, a former U.S. Navy sailor, said Pelkie, a Democrat Precinct Committee person, is engaging in “vote fraud” by working to suppress votes in Will County. 

“Elected Precinct Committee persons are barred by statute from serving as election judges because of the conflict in positions,” Pearson said in an email. “Nevertheless, Will County Clerk Lauren Staley-Ferry appointed Chuck Pelkie to supervise hiring, training, managing and firing election staff and election judges.” 

Pearson said on several instances Pelkie has engaged in anti-Democratic behavior noting that poll watchers from the Will County Republican Central Committee, the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment and a Will County candidate said Pelkie was accepting mail-in ballots that were open whereas law stipulates they must be properly sealed. 

“Will County election judges' panel refused to follow Illinois election law that requires a voter's ballot be in a sealed ballot envelope to be delivered in a sealed condition to the election authority,” Pearson wrote. “Instead the panel made up their own rules to avoid following the law.” 

As of Friday, 167,673 had voted in Will County, over double the total count of mail-in ballots in the 2016 presidential election. 

Will County election authorities have also routinely failed to post vital information required by the state on poll locations, according to Pearson. 

“Without the time, place and location notices, poll watchers cannot be sent to observe the proceedings,” he wrote. “Also, after the ballot envelopes are cut open, they are kept for hours out of sight of poll watchers before the next processing step.”