The campaign of GOP Governor-hopeful Richard Irvin bussed in “elderly Indian senior citizens” to vote for him in a Lake County Republican straw poll on the primary race Saturday, according to Cities sources.
“The essence of this straw poll is that you don’t necessarily have to live in the county. The idea is that you come to this event, you buy a ticket. You go in and you mingle and you talk to the candidates. You listen to the candidates give their presentations. Then you go and get your ballot and you vote for whoever you thought was best. Then they tally that up and say who won the straw poll. That’s the essence of it. I think it’s a great idea, if done correctly,” said Tom DeVore, a candidate for Illinois Attorney General.
LAKE COUNTY STRAW POLL:
Irvin 144 (3 being PCs)
Bailey 76 (28 being PCs)
Sullivan 76 (20 being PCs)
Rabine 63 (11 being PCs)
Schimpf 6 (2 being PCs)
*PCs are precinct committeemen
DeVore said he was there and had overheard some troubling conversations between Irvin’s campaign staff and the Indian seniors, who seemed to not understand who Richard Irvin was let alone the other candidates.
“I believe by the time this bus had got there Mr. Irvin had already talked. I believe he was already gone. I was walking around and I heard a little bit of commotion going in the room. I was not where the candidates were speaking, I was in a completely different room out front where people were coming in and out of the building. The area people were speaking was kind of in the back. I heard this commotion so I go out front,” said DeVore. “When I go out front I see this bus sitting there.”
Irvin campaign people can be seen in the video standing next to the door of a bus and then senior citizens start coming off the bus and they were Indian.
Sources tell Cities Nimish Jani, who is the committee person from the 8th district of the Illinois Republican Party, and who is also Indian, may have orchestrated getting the Indian Senior citizens lined up, in exchange for Jani being set to receive an appointment into Irvin’s cabinet if he wins.
When asked about the the allegations about the straw poll and Nimish, the Irivin spokeperson Eleni Demertzis said all of the allegations are untrue.
Image provided by the Irvin Bourne HQ
Lake County Gazzette sources confirmed straw poll voters were not validated as registered voters or Lake County residents by county Chairman Mark Shaw, or Lake County Republican Federation committee member Dawn Abernathy, who organized the event.
“As they were getting off the bus they were being handed these ballots,” said Tom Devore. “Someone that was there, they showed to me the ballot, they had in their hand one of the ballots and it had Mr. Irvin and Ms. Bourne name already marked off on it.”
Devore said they were handing them to these folks and these folks were walking in and there was this big bucket and dropping them in there then they would go out and leave.
“I wasn’t too far away. I heard one of the conversations going on with one of the senior citizens,” said DeVore. “In the essence of this conversation…they weren’t really certain they understood there was a straw poll going on for Governor’s race, that they were just a part of this group that was coming here and putting these ballots in and leaving. It was crystal clear to me this woman in particular wasn’t aware she was a straw poll voter. I didn’t see this lady go in and out specifically, but that bus was there and gone so quick that they didn’t go in and listen to any of the speakers. The bus wasn’t there that long it was there just to do the voting and go back.”
It is possible the seniors came from Bharatiya Senior Citizens, a senior group based out of Chicago. Cities has reached out to Richard Irvin’s team for comment.
They sent Cities a press release:
The Irvin for Illinois campaign won the Lake County GOP Straw Poll that took place on Saturday at the Round Lake Beach Cultural and Civic Center. Richard Irvin earned over 39 percent of the vote, almost 20 percent more support than the candidates in second place.
“Representative Bourne and I are grateful for the support that resulted in our first victory at the Lake County GOP straw poll this weekend,” Irvin said. “This is just one of many wins to come on our path to take Illinois back from J.B. Pritzker’s extreme policies that have created unsafe communities and forced high taxes onto Illinois families and businesses.”
Does straw polling affect elections in any way?
“That’s a fair question and if I’m being totally honest I don’t know the answer. I know within a few hours of when the result of the straw poll was issued Mr. Irvin and Ms. Bourne were putting it out on their social media that they won the straw poll and using it as a marketing technique,” said DeVore. “Does it have a material impact on how they might ultimately vote or not? I don’t know the answer to that nor does anybody. I think the conversation for the people of the state is to understand that Mr. Irvin may want to give an explanation that might make sense and I would encourage him to do so, but for me as one voter out of however millions of votes. I’m interested in saying ‘Okay are you really willing to go through that to win a straw poll?’ To me, I’m not a boy scout, you can call me a boy scout, I don’t want to have to play games for those types of things. It doesn’t set a good example.”
