CHICAGO — With voting well underway, some Chicagoans are realizing after leaving the polls that they missed an entire page of their ballot.
DNAinfo Chicago received dozens of complaints of missing ballot pages Tuesday morning. While people said they received a page including candidates for President, Senate and judges, the page with a constitutional amendment regarding use of tax money earmarked for roads was missing.
Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman Jim Allen said there was a mix-up early Tuesday morning at some polling places, where election judges did not hand out both pages of the ballot.
"The training all election judges received before Election Day emphasized that there was a two-page ballot," Allen said. "In many cases, the issue was resolved quickly after an inquiry from a voter."
He said if voters left without requesting the second page, there wasn't much they could do at this point. There was no estimate on how many voters went without the second page, but DNAinfo received reports of missing pages from Mount Greenwood, Logan Square, Lakeview, Montclare, Washington Park and other areas.
"The issue only affected ballots cast on paper in the early hours of voting Tuesday morning," Allen said.
Other hiccups were reported as well.
Theresa Isaacson said her polling place in the 17th precinct in the 49th Ward in Rogers Park was not open for voting at 6:20 a.m. Tuesday, even though polls were supposed to be open by 6 a.m.
“It was very frustrating,” Isaacson told DNAinfo. "I got there at about 5:50 a.m., and they were not open by 6 a.m."
Edward Wodnicki, a supervisor of investigations for the Cook County Board of Elections, was at the polling place Tuesday morning. He said the person responsible for opening up the building to set up for voting did not arrive until 5:30 a.m. — a half hour late — leading to set-up delays and long lines by the time voting finally started.
Officials were apologetic as they scrambled around trying to find extension cords and get the polling place set up, Isaacson said, but she and a few others had to leave for work at 6:20 a.m. without having voted.
But by 7:30 a.m. the lines were gone and everything was back to normal.
Despite the hiccups, no Chicago polling places will stay open after 7 p.m., Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman Jim Allen said.
This election is the first time in five years that all polls will close on time, Allen said.
Voter Molly Scannell said some polling places appeared to have ballots that do not include the referendums — including one on the constitutional amendment about regarding use of tax money earmarked for roads.
At her polling place at Brentano Elementary School in Logan Square, only two ballots were available, neither of which contained the ballot questions, according to Scannell.
"I asked about a provisional ballot and the election judge was not able to give me any way to vote on the constitutional questions," Scannell said. "It seemed like [the staff] didn't even know it existed."
Scannell also said she has talked to friends in Park Ridge who ran into the same problem at their local polling stations.
Chicago voters: make sure you get the amendments ballot if you vote by paper today. Our precinct overlooked them until asked about it...
— Ziena Miller (@zienamiller) November 8, 2016
Kyle Bryan, a Logan Square resident who also voted at Brentano with his wife, ran into the same problem.
“But now that I’ve already voted, do I get to re-vote?” he said..
He said the officials at the site told him they did not know what was going on and weren't able to help him.
Various reports of voting hiccups were posted on social media, including voters reporting damaged voting machines and paper ballots without pens.
@nbcchicago @Ward_Room 67th & Oglesby 29th & 32nd precincts: machines don't work. No pens for paper ballots. I left w/o voting after 40 mins
— JJ Fannin (@jfannin73) November 8, 2016
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