Widow With Visible Vote Gets No Help
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The state Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to come to the rescue of an 86-year-old widow who is worried about voting in next week’s primary election because anyone could see for whom she votes.
“I think that’s just terrible--I wonder why,” Lydia Thorpe said in a telephone interview from her home in Kewanee in north central Illinois. “I don’t know whether I will (vote) or not. I don’t think I would.”
Through a quirk of redistricting, Thorpe is the only registered voter in the 93rd House District piece of Kewanee’s 6th Precinct. Everyone else in her precinct is in the 94th House District.
Henry County State’s Atty. Larry Vandersnick wanted the Supreme Court to readjust the new legislative district boundary so that all the precinct’s voters would be in the 94th District.
The court denied Vandersnick’s motions without comment. That means anybody could see how Lydia Thorpe votes Tuesday in the presidential primary, as well as in local races.
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