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Voting machine glitches in Chicago and suburban Cook County tested the patience of Commissioner Forrest Claypool’s campaign for county board president last night.

Claypool’s campaign staff warned supporters early that it could be a long night.

For hours, many took that as code language. They thought the campaign was just putting the best face on a tight race.

But election authorities said they couldn’t declare a winner last night, and candidate Claypool sent many supporters home.

By 12 a.m., Claypool consultant David Axelrod had had it with the unproven voting machines.

""I welcome the new system,"" he says. ""I just think they ought to learn how to administer it. And they should do it not during an election, they should have done it before the election.""

Meanwhile, there were others frustrated with the slow vote count: namely, incumbent board President John Stroger’s campaign staff.

A Stroger spokesman pointed out that many of the uncounted votes lie in Stroger’s political stronghold.

By early this morning, nearly 200 precincts still remained uncounted.
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