No Conspiracy Required: The True Origins Of Chicago's February Elections

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2015

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sure, the timing’s awful for campaigning and voting, but it wasn’t some trick concocted by the Democratic Machine. In fact, it was meant to empower voters.

Transcript

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0:00.0	When were the...
0:03.0	What school's the...
0:06.0	Who decides what the next...
0:08.0	Where's that story?
0:09.0	Why they keep the look?
0:11.0	What is this?
0:13.0	It's a curious city.
0:15.0	Where WBEZ answers your questions...
0:17.0	About Chicago, the region, and its people.
0:20.0	Hey everybody, I'm Derek John, an editor at WBEZ.
0:25.2	Recently, a bunch of you all wrote in with the same question about our upcoming elections in Illinois.
0:30.9	And before we answer that question, let's just get something out of the way.
0:34.5	Most towns across the state hold municipal or what's known as consolidated elections
0:39.2	on the first Tuesday in April. Primaries are in late February. Chicago's different. There are no
0:45.5	primaries for aldermen or mayor. Instead, its February election is really the one that matters.
0:51.2	Unless there's a runoff. They do that in April. Got it? Okay, here's our question.
0:56.7	Why are the Chicago municipal elections held in February? What's the real reason?
1:03.4	Now, that last part, the real reason? That's the key for the people who asked. They feel the
1:09.0	timing with a chance of sub-zero temps and snow
1:12.6	amounts to a conspiracy.
1:14.6	My name is Eric Sherman and I'm a local political activist.
1:17.6	Everyone has a theory about why the election is in winter
	...

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