During the heyday of the Democratic machine, voter fraud was a common strategy used to skew votes and keep machine politicians in power. Voter fraud is done in many different ways including trashing of ballots and alteration of counting machine totals. In extreme cases of voter fraud there can be more votes cast than citizens residing in the area. By the early 90’s, thanks to the work of independent democrats like David Orr, measures were put into place to prevent the machine from continuing to win its elections through fraud. Volunteer poll watchers would be stationed throughout the city to prevent tampering of ballots and make sure that there was no suspicious activity.

A report given to poll watchers for them to fill out, noting any suspicious activity or possible voter fraud.

 

A form for officials to fill out in order to assign poll watchers to local polling sites

 

An election judge report form, meant to help gather information on the voter participants, other judges and police on the scene

 

A list of voter names that were tallied and checked off to determine who actually voted. In this example 4 of the voters were absent