'Rich Whitey' Appears on Chicago Ballots

Misspelling of Rich Whitney's name to be corrected

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 15, 2010 9:40 AM CDT

Copied

'Rich Whitey' Appears on Chicago Ballots — Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney speaks during an interview on Monday, Sept. 27, 2010, in Chicago. Whitney is running against Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

A certain “Rich Whitey” is running for governor of Illinois—or so the ballots have it. Thousands of electronic voting machines, including about 500 currently being used for early voting, contain a misspelling of Green Party hopeful Rich Whitney’s last name, the AP reports. “We don't have any idea what affect that has had on voters,” said the party’s leader. Election officials said the mistake is being corrected.

But state Green Party boss Phil Huckelberry says officials ignored the problem for a day. The misspelling occurs only on a screen to review choices, not on the screen where the vote is placed. But “I think something needs to be done above and beyond what they're doing,” said Huckelberry. "Our candidate has been tagged with a name that really isn't that nice."
(More Rich Whitney stories.)

Report an error