More than 100,000 Chicagoans could be stricken from voter rolls unless they again register to vote at their local polling places Tuesday, according to the Citywide Coalition for Voter Registration.
Milt Cohen, a coalition spokesman, said at a press conference Sunday in the Bismarck Hotel that the residents may be denied a chance to vote in the March 18 primary if they have changed their address and failed to register again.
In January, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners mailed registration-verification cards to all registered voters, and 116,541 of the cards were returned to the board as undeliverable. The names of those people are expected to be purged from the rolls unless they sign up Tuesday, Cohen said.
He and other coalition members criticized the board for not placing an address-correction request on the cards. If such a request had been included, many of those voters whose cards were returned could have been informed through a second letter of their need to register, Cohen said.
But the board obtained change-of-address information from the U.S. Postal Service, and the board has sent thousands of change-of-address cards to voters, said Thomas Leach, a board spokesman.
Leach also said no names of voters would be purged solely because their registration-verification cards were returned. He said the addresses of voters whose cards were returned would be checked in a door-to-door canvass this week. Should the validity of a registration be challenged, each voter will have the opportunity for reinstatement, Leach said.
”We told voters to give us change-of-address information, but we didn`t want the cards forwarded,” Leach said. ”If a voter moves to a different place, they shouldn`t be given an identification card to vote at their old address.
”No one will be disenfranchised,” Leach said. ”All they have to do is call us for information.” Voters can call the board at 269-7000 for information on where polling places are located and where they should sign up Tuesday if they have changed their address and not notified the board.
Timuel Black, a professor of social sciences at Northeastern Illinois University and a coalition leader, said purges of voters` names historically have been concentrated in minority communities and areas of the city with transient populations.
Black, who has been a campaign manager for several South Side political candidates, said large-scale purges would reduce the number of minority voters who registered during Mayor Harold Washington`s 1983 mayoral campaign.
”These purges have the potential to create chaos and could frustrate and anger the minority community,” Black said. ”If people are knocked off the rolls, they are denied a positive means of expressing their anger.”
