Retaliation

Politicians often quashed political opposition by utilizing government authority to do it, so it wouldn’t look like they were doing anything “political” and so nobody would suspect anything had been done improperly.

Arnold Levy announced his challenge of the incumbent 48th Ward Democratic Committeeman (who was jailed before the end of his term for shaking down building owners) in 1980 in the party room of Lawrence House, an Uptown senior citizen residence, where half the voters in the precinct resided.

In retaliation, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners moved the precinct polling place from there to a building two blocks away, despite having previously adopted a policy of locating polling places in senior citizen buildings whenever half or more of the voters in a precinct lived there.

A court challenge seeking to reverse the decision failed.