Incumbent sails to victory in Cook recorder race

Despite some pointed attacks from his challenger, Cook County Recorder of Deeds Eugene Moore sailed to victory Tuesday.

With 90 percent of the precincts counted, Eugene Moore had 63 percent of the vote to Ed Smith's 37 percent.

"It's certainly an endorsement (by the people)," said Moore. "The people who work for me are a fine bunch of people. They're professionals. … We're definitely going to continue to automate the office."

Smith called the recorder shortly before 10 p.m. to concede.

Although he lost, Smith said he thought the race heightened people's awareness of the office.

Smith ran under a banner of reform, claiming that once inside, he would evaluate the office to see if it could be abolished or combined with other county offices like clerk or assessor. He claimed the office is currently a cesspool of patronage hiring.

Moore, the incumbent from Maywood, touted his achievements to blunt his opponent's criticisms. For instance, Smith claimed the office was woefully lacking in technology, but Moore pointed to his record of digitizing records for remote downloading by average people at home -- a feature Moore implemented nearly four years ago.

In addition, Moore returned the attacks on his opponent, claiming Smith, a Chicago alderman, had done little to bring development to his poor West Side ward.

Smith conceded Moore had done some modernization, but he said the recorder's office should digitize information in addition to images of documents, so the information could be categorized and sold for profit to reduce taxes.