* CBS 2…

City election officials had to send out scores of standby election judges on Tuesday, after a shortage of workers at polling places throughout Chicago.

Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Chairman Langdon Neal said at least one precinct in all 50 wards had a problem with election judges not showing up, and the city had to enlist the help of 250 standby judges.

Neal said the problem should not affect elections. City election officials were contacting voters they believe were not able to cast ballots Tuesday morning due to polling places opening late, and asking if they could come back to cast a ballot later Tuesday.

* Background on the robocalls…

A barrage of automated phone calls offering false instructions to scores of election judges was “a serious attempt to disrupt” Chicago voting operations in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote, elections officials said.

Between Friday and Monday an unknown number of judges — the paid partisan employees tasked with operating polling stations — received the misleading robo-calls, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

“Given the level of response that we received, we suspect it was a large number of people — we don’t know how large,” Jim Allen, board spokesman said Monday.

Some of the judges received calls informing them that they needed an additional training session before they could work a polling station, board chairman Langdon Neal said. Only one three-hour session is required.

* But there was also a second set of calls…

the second call told judges they serve for one political party and they must vote the same party.

As I told subscribers today, the people receiving those calls were Republicans, making it unlikely that the Democrats were behind it. But one never knows, I suppose.

* In other news, remember the racist mailer sent into Rep. Fred Crespo’s district? The Democrats denied it came from them and did robocalls over the weekend to make sure Crespo didn’t get blamed. The Daily Herald followed up…

Hanover Park Village President Rodney Craig backed Crespo’s contentions Sunday. He said he visited [Republican candidate Ramiro Juarez] at his office Saturday and confronted him about the mailer. Juarez, he said, blamed the flier on a volunteer working for his campaign.

“He said, ‘It’s (a campaign volunteer), he’s out of control,’” Craig said.

State election record show Craig made donations totaling $700 to Crespo’s campaign in 2010 and 2011, but he said he has no role in this year’s campaign.

Juarez denied making that statement to Craig and blamed the accusation on bad blood between the Hanover Park mayor and the volunteer.

* Meanwhile…

In at least three locations — in the 1st, 2nd and 42nd wards — there were reports of counting machines not accepting the ballots. That forced some voters to cast traditional paper ballots.

In the 1st Ward’s 25th precinct, the automated ballots were put aside to be counted later. The counting machine was reading “jammed,” said Larry Ligas, a poll observer for the campaign of GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner. No ballots were damaged by the malfunctioning machine, Ligas said.

“The judges were incompetent,” Ligas said.

*** UPDATE *** From the DCCC…

Hearing that Republicans are engaging in some serious voter intimidation in East St. Louis, key precinct in #IL12 and statewide.

— Emily Bittner (@emily_bittner) November 4, 2014

@capitolfax Checking Af-Am voters' signatures to disqualify them from voting on Election Day, creating confusion + hoops to jump through

— Emily Bittner (@emily_bittner) November 4, 2014

* But this is what I put on the ScribbleLive feed…

I just checked with the East St. Louis Election Commission. There was an issue this morning about GOP poll watchers demanding to verify voter signatures. This is the first time that outside poll watchers have worked ESL, the director said, so there was confusion. The director has visited the three precincts where this was an issue, calmed everybody down, briefed everyone about the law, and notified the state’s attorney. I’m told by others that the problems have been solved, and the director agreed.