The Illinois Review details how voting machines in Cook County are changing votes for Republicans into votes for their Democrat opponents. That fact couldn’t be hidden any longer when a GOP candidate for Illinois State Representative attempted to vote for himself last week. “While early voting at the Schaumburg Public Library today, I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Republican candidate Jim Moynihan complained, “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.”

The Cook County Board of Elections insists the problem is isolated and a matter of the computer in the voting machine not being calibrated correctly. The GOP’s Moynihan says that regardless of the reason, it is suppressing Republican votes in the Chicago suburbs. “Clearly, I am concerned that citizens will be unable to vote for the candidate of their choice, especially if they are in a hurry and do not double check their ballot,” the Republican candidate warned, “I cannot say whether or not this was intentional, but Cook County voters deserve better and should not have their right to vote suppressed.”

Vote flipping in Maryland

Illinois isn’t the only Democrat-controlled state that is experiencing a mysterious bout of vote flipping by electronic voting machines, changing ballots cast for Republicans into votes for their Democrat opponents. WBAL-TV in Baltimore reports the state Board of Elections is investigating numerous complaints of machines changing GOP voters’ ballots.

‘The Maryland State Board of Elections is investigating complaints that voting machines are flipping Republican votes to Democrat,’ the local news outlet reported, ‘Complaints of vote-flipping, as some call it, are coming from as many as nine Maryland counties, including Anne Arundel, Montgomery, Frederick, Howard, Queen Anne’s and Baltimore counties.’

The outlet interviewed one voter who said she tried to cast her ballot for Republican candidates but the machine beeped and then changed her vote to the Democrat candidate. She said it happened repeatedly. The Maryland Board of Elections has investigated 20 machines so far and confirmed that vote-flipping was happening in at least 8 of them. Officials again blamed the problem on “calibration” errors and have taken the faulty electronic voting machines out of service.

Break-ins, vandalism and death threats

A report from CBS 2 Chicago yesterday brings us back to Illinois where Democrat operatives have enlisted Dirty Trick #16 on our Whiteout Press list of 50 establishment dirty campaign tricks, ‘Find out what businesses are supporting your opponent and pressure them to stop their support.’ In Chicago however, that comes in the form of precinct workers breaking into a neighborhood church, threatening its Pastor, stealing thousands of dollars from the donation bin and vandalizing the house of worship – all because the African American Pastor publicly endorsed the white Republican candidate for Governor.

‘Republican candidate for Governor, Bruce Rauner, came to the defense of one of his most prominent black supporters on Sunday after Pastor Corey Brooks’ church was vandalized, and his life allegedly was threatened,’ the local CBS affiliate detailed, ‘Brooks said he moved his family out of their home as a precaution while police investigate the burglary and threats.’

The party IS the government

The next example comes from Georgia and is a good example of Dirty Trick #26 on our list, ‘Campaign right inside the polling place, pressuring voters if need be.’ As detailed by Yahoo News and the Daily Caller, a Georgia voter was forced by a Democrat election judge to remove his National Rifle Association hat inside the polling place because she said some voters might associate the NRA with the GOP.

This example brings back a number of memories from past Election Days, humorous now but incredibly serious at the time. Polling places are like airports, schools and churches – you can’t mess around. The police will take you to jail without even asking your side of the story. But don’t let that stop you from flying your colors proudly while voting. Whether your cause is immigration, marijuana reform, gun rights, abortion, taxes or anything else, you can legally wear your buttons, hats and shirts inside the polling place. Only electioneering for a specific candidate, party or ballot initiative on that day’s ballot is typically banned.

The Democrat poll judge decided she was going to interpret the law differently, but when challenged, cited a non-existent court case as her justification. Military veteran Bundy Cobb was the voter and he is a certified rifle instructor and owns his own firearm training business. “I went by the first two ladies and they didn’t say anything,” Cobb recalled for the Daily Caller, “And then the next lady, she said ‘sir, you’re going to have to take off your hat.’” Cobb says he was caught off guard and pointed to another voter wearing a hat, “What are you talking about? What’s the difference between his hat and mine?”

“It kind of caught me off guard,” Cobb said, explaining he’s worn the same hat to vote in the past without incident, “It’s ridiculous. My hat advertises my business.” But the County Board of Elections is standing by its judge’s actions. Laurie Fulton, Elections Supervisor in Douglas County told the news outlet, “The courts have found that anything that suggests associated with the NRA in many people’s perceptions is associated with the Republican party. So in an overabundance of caution, Mr. Cobb was asked to remove the hat so that no one could interpret that we were playing any favoritism over one party versus the other.”

Fulton’s claim was questioned by a number of grassroots political organizations and media outlets. When pressed by the Daily Caller, the outlet describes, ‘But reached for further comment, Fulton couldn’t cite the court case she alluded to and told TheDC that there was no clear precedent at the state level prohibiting NRA apparel.’ For the record, both voters complied and removed their NRA hats.

Voter registrations

The next example of election tricks falls under Dirty Trick #39, ‘Register as many voters as possible using commercial mail box stores, PO Boxes, obituaries and even thin air.’ Once again, the state of Illinois – Cook County and Chicago specifically – are being called into question over recent announcements of final voter registration numbers. In 1989, Chicago elected its first black Mayor, Harold Washington, surprising the city’s residents. They did it by registering 100,000 new voters.

Chicago progressive organizations announced last week that they’ve matched that historic feat once again, registering an additional 100,000 new Cook County voters just in the last four months. As detailed by ABC 7 Chicago, the voter registration drive specifically targeted young people from poor or black neighborhoods. “I was there to make sure we registered our people to vote,” the outlet quotes one drive organizer. He didn’t clarify who “our people” were and the news network didn’t ask.

What voter registrations?

The final example of election irregularities occurring during early voting this past week takes us back to Georgia and is the only example of Republican officials stifling Democrats ability to vote we found, this week at least. This one falls under Dirty Trick #33 from our list, ‘Line the government from top to bottom with friends, family, contributors and Party operatives.’

As detailed by Think Progress two days ago, a similar Democrat voter registration drive as detailed above occurred in Georgia over the past few months. But after registering 90,000 new voters, the progressive group insists, ‘50,000 of the registrations had vanished, nearly all of them belonging to people of color in the Democratic-leaning regions.’

“We asked the Secretary of State to meet with us,” Georgia Democrat State Rep. Stacy Abrams told the press, “We wanted to understand if we were doing something wrong, or if there was another database we didn’t have access to. But he refused to meet with us.” Even with an appeal from the ACLU, the GA Board of Elections refused to process the remaining voter registrations insisting there is no law or guideline specifying how fast new voters must be added to the voter rolls.

For more examples of election fraud and vote fraud, stay tuned. The General Election has barely even started yet.