Dominick wins Cicero Town President 2-1, Accused of Voter Intimidation

February 25, 2009 by James Bregenzer
Filed under: Corruption, Elections

Incumbent Cicero Town President Larry Dominick won re-election yesterday with 64 percent of the vote.

Incumbent Cicero Town President Larry Dominick easily won re-election Tuesday with 64 percent of the vote, a 2-1 margin, according to unofficial Cook County results.

Dominick was challenged by Cicero Police Officer Roberto Garcia, who says Dominick has become an “iron-fisted” leader that won re-election using similar tactics Cicero leaders have used for years, going back to the days of Al Capone.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Cook County Clerk David Orr called in sheriff’s police to remove armed guards Dominick hired to stand inside Cicero polling locations.

“It’s voter intimidation when off-duty armed police officers show up in polling places,” Orr spokeswoman Courtney Greve said. “They had no authorization to be in the polling places. We have a crew of sheriff’s officers on call. They had to come to remove the off-duty officers hired by Dominick’s campaign.”

After Dominick’s overwhelming victory, Garcia replied “I think it’s just the intimidation factor. People believe that someone knows how they vote. They fear the inspectors will come to their house the next day.”

And some voters agreed that the armed guards at polling places intimidated them.

Cicero poll worker and witness Veronica Soto commented “One of the people actually came in here and told our maintenance worker that they went inside the polling place, and she was very upset because they told her that she needed to vote for a certain individual which was Larry Dominick.”