* Associated Press…

Robocalls that Chicago election officials blamed for the no-show of 2,000 election judges this week were recorded by people helping Cook County Republicans recruit poll workers and who were trying to ensure those judges voted for the GOP, according to recordings of the calls.

But the chairman of the Cook County GOP says the calls were not sanctioned by the party.

Chicago election officials have referred the issue to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, which has begun an investigation. No charges have been filed.

The calls were first brought to the public’s attention Monday by city officials who labeled them “intimidation” and who later linked them to the higher than usual absentee rate of judges at the polls. While no one claims the calls affected the outcome of the vote, election officials said the judges’ confusion left them scrambling to find last-minute stand-ins and contributed to long lines and delays at polling places throughout the city.

OK, first of all, I was on the conference call when the spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners talked to reporters about the robocalls. He never said that 2,000 judges didn’t show up because of the calls. He said that, typically “more than a thousand” judges don’t show up on election day and stressed that the board wouldn’t know who the no-shows were and how many didn’t show up until pay slips were processed.

* Mark Brown…

Sources tell me Chicago election officials went into Tuesday’s voting with at least 1,500 election judge vacancies, regarded as less than optimum but not out of the norm.

Either way, the “2,000 judges didn’t show up because of robocalls” line is false. Period.

At the time, the city board spokesman was simply passing along what he was hearing from the judges, many of whom were extremely upset and some of whom had quit. But he went out of his way not to say which party may have been targeted.

* He also said that the calls could’ve been mere “incompetence.” Here is the transcript for two of the calls…

“This is your Chicago election judge coordinator Jim Parrilli. I’m calling to let you know that tomorrow, Nov. 1, we are having an additional training at our headquarters from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. … Beverages will be served. We will have people there to answer any question you might have about your responsibility as election judge on Tuesday, Nov. 4.”

Judges were told to go to 411 E. 79th St. (which is a vacant lot) or 8340 S. Western, according to Brown. On Nov. 1, a follow-up call told judges to go to 711 E. 79th (a clothing store) and 8140 S. Western. The GOP campaign office is actually at 511 E. 79th St., Brown reports, and 8340 S. Western was rented by the Cook County Republican Party.

According to the board spokesman on election day, some judges thought the city should pay them for the extra training and quit. People don’t often hear details too well on the phone, especially with calls like these. Back in my youthful telemarketing days (Amoco Motor Club), part of our training involved telling us that people don’t usually pick up on the first few words when they answer their phones. So I can understand how some thought this was an official training, and I can understand why the bad addresses made people even more suspect.

* And what about the calls telling judges they had to vote a straight GOP ticket? That didn’t really happen, either. Parilli was urging judges to vote early, just in case they were assigned to a precinct which wasn’t their own. During another robocall, he said judges are “required to participate in voting to be an election judge.” If “participate in voting” means registering to vote, I suppose that’s true. Otherwise, no.

And Parilli went on to say this during one call…

“Part of being a Republican judge means supporting our Republican ticket.”

From a partisan rah-rah standpoint, I can see where he’s coming from. But there is no actual requirement.

* OK, back to Brown…

[The Republican ward] committeeman blamed most of the problems on separate efforts by Sharon Meroni, one of the individuals involved in the robocalls, to purge Republican election judges with a history of Democratic voting.

Nelson and other committeemen confirmed an ongoing battle with Meroni in the weeks before the election as they tried to protect the election judges they had selected.

Just a day before the robocalls started, Meroni went before a Cook County Circuit judge in an unsuccessful bid to dump 480 Republican election judges on the basis of party loyalty.

As I explained earlier, Meroni was the Cook County GOP’s election judge coordinator, presenting herself before both city and county election officials as the designated representative of Cook County Republican chairman Aaron Del Mar.

Del Mar insisted to me that Meroni was just a volunteer, one among hundreds, even though the party paid $5,000 to her company in the months before the election. On Tuesday, he said he’s no longer going to comment.

Ironically enough, Meroni is a crusader against “vote fraud”.