Cabrini Election Caught Up in Court

By: Cory OldweilerOn Jan. 22, residents of the Cabrini-Green public housing development chose a new president for their local advisory council, the group charged with giving voice to tenants’ concerns. But while a vocal Chicago Housing Authority critic was named the election’s winner, more than a month later the outcome is far from final.

With the CHA’s massive redevelopment of public housing moving along unfettered, the advisory council leaders can provide a crucial check on agency decisions. Cabrini council members, for instance, sit on the team that will oversee the development’s reconstruction, a concession won in the 2000 settlement of their federal lawsuit against the CHA’s original plan.

The last elections, held in 1998, were poorly run, and this time the CHA requested bids to run elections at all of its developments. CHA Board of Commissioners Chairperson Sharon Gist Gilliam said “two or three” firms responded.

The CHA hired Chicago-based Citizens Information Service (CIS), a nonprofit that serves as a neutral election contractor.
After the election, challenger Carol Steele held an unofficial 267-260 lead over longtime incumbent Cora Moore, but irregularities at several polling places made officials consider holding another election Feb. 7. CIS decided against it, and Moore filed suit, challenging the results.

On Feb. 13, CIS certified Steele the winner, 261-214. In a subsequent press conference at Cabrini, Shirley Taylor Birts, an Oak Park-based attorney representing Moore, said “no winner should be declared” because CIS had not addressed the challenges.

CIS’s contract states it must “resolve any protest to election results or election process.” But the CHA, which agreed to pay the firm up to $278,191, announced Feb. 15 that it was concerned about CIS’s “rationale” for its Cabrini decisions and would seek arbitration—an option in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development election regulations.

Steele’s attorney, William P. Wilen of the Chicago-based National Center on Poverty Law, said the CHA was trying to “insert itself in the election” because it was unhappy with the results. Steele chairs the Coalition to Protect Public Housing, a group of activist organizations that have criticized CHA policies.

Uncharted Waters
On Feb. 21, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Raymond L. Jagielski said the election was in what he called “uncharted waters.”

Jagielski called this situation unique, in part because CIS had no written rules on how to handle any disputes after the election.

Jagielski ordered Moore and Steele out of court and into arbitration, allowing the CHA and CIS to participate as observers. He named Northbrook-based attorney Barbara Goodman, whom he called “an expert in the field of election law,” to lead the discussions. A meeting to establish guidelines for the process was scheduled for Mar. 1, Goodman said.

The CHA declined to comment on the handling of the election, but Gilliam said it was too early to say if CIS will receive the payment stipulated in its contract, calling it a “legal decision.”

Once Goodman renders a decision, the parties must come back to Jagielski’s courtroom, where they can challenge any ruling.

According to court documents, the election contest concerns activities at three of seven polling places:
• At 1015-17 N. Larrabee St., each voter received two ballots. Election officials discounted the additional ballots, and Moore received 32 votes to Steele’s one. Birts asserted that these votes were not counted, but they were.

• At 1230 N. Burling St., ballots were allegedly not initialed by the election judge until after the polls closed. CIS’s election procedures and Illinois election law require ballots to be initialed before being handed to voters. If these votes had counted, Moore would have overtaken Steele.

• At 931 N. Cleveland Ave., where residents of the Cabrini rowhouses voted, all the ballots were lost after they were counted and recorded by three election judges and the Cabrini election coordinator, Nolan H. Lane. Steele, a rowhouse resident, trounced Moore here, 201-21.

Lost Ballots
Lane, a former minor league baseball player who works as a Chicago Public Schools substitute teacher, was born and raised in the South Side’s Harold Ickes public housing development. As election coordinator, he was responsible for making everything at Cabrini run smoothly, according to CIS documents. But he said he doesn’t know what happened to the lost ballots. And his version of election night differs slightly from witnesses’ affidavits.

He and election judges finished counting ballots at six polling places by 9 p.m., he said, and he went to 931 N. Cleveland Ave. around 9:15 p.m. He and the judges began counting and continued for several hours, finishing around 1 a.m.

They recounted the ballots at least twice, Lane said, but were hindered by dozens of residents milling about, looking in windows and coming into the polling place, all wanting to know who won.

After Lane had worked nearly 20 hours, the last count was finally finished to his satisfaction. He decided the nearly 300 ballots from the last polling place would not fit easily into the lock box.

“That was my decision,” Lane said. “They would not fit fast enough to get out of there. It was easier to put [them] in a paper bag.”

That is the last Lane remembers seeing the ballots.

When he brought the seven ballot boxes into CIS’s office, everyone was too tired to notice anything was wrong, Lane said.

The next morning, Lane and Reggie Winfrey, the CIS election project director, discovered the ballots were missing. Lane said he cannot remember whether he carried in the bag the night before or left it in the polling place. Winfrey was “upset with me,” Lane said, “and I am kinda upset with myself, too.”

CIS’s contract states “all election supervisors, trainers and judges” must be CHA residents, which Lane is not. He said he heard about the job through a friend who knew Winfrey.

Lane also said CIS owes him $1,200 for the last 84 hours he worked.

The CHA would not comment, and Winfrey quickly became angry at the mention of Lane. “You can print whatever you want,” he said, declining to comment further.

In the meantime, Judge Jagielski’s decision does not prevent Steele from taking office. And, according to Wilen, she will to move into her new office and begin fulfilling her duties.

Cory Oldweiler is a freelance writer.