Primary voting shenanigans?

If I were a Jeanne Ives supporter and a conspiracy theorist ...

Consider:

Gov. Bruce Rauner is in a surprisingly tight race with conservative challenger Ives for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. The Republican establishment of DuPage County (Ives's home turf) has endorsed Rauner, but polls show the election will be really close. How many votes will Rauner need in DuPage to win statewide? If only there were some way to know ...

Oh, my goodness, something is wrong with the DuPage voting machines. The vote count will have to be delayed and 268 of the machines brought to one location for vote tabulation. That will take a while. Hey, look ... the returns from other counties show that Rauner is doing all right and won't need a win in DuPage to come out on top. Limiting Ives to a four-point victory should be sufficient. Once that is known, time to tally the votes ... and Ives takes the county by four percent.

Fast forward a bit: the DuPage Republican powers that be are shocked - shocked - by the Election-Night fiasco, which is blamed on faulty "ender cards" that were not tested before balloting began. Cue the outrage and righteous indignation, and then the hand wringing by those chosen to take the fall. But Gov. Rauner won the battle, so all is well.

I'm not an Ives supporter. I'm also not a conspiracy theorist (at least not yet). But if I were ...

Kenneth N. Marshall

Lombard