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Happy Friday. Jump into the weekend with these local stories from WTTW News.
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Chicago Board of Elections staff tests new equipment at the downtown early voting supersite on Feb. 10, 2026. (Ken Carl / WTTW)
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Amid growing concerns over the safety and security of elections throughout the U.S. and a renewed push by President Donald Trump for the federal government to nationalize the process, how confident should voters feel about the integrity of their ballots?
That’s top of mind for Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who told CNN that federal interference in the upcoming midterm elections this fall was a certainty along the lines of a “weather event, like a bomb threat, like a power outage” that must be anticipated and prepared for.
Election security has always been a crucial matter in American politics, but concerns have only grown in recent years, driven largely by foreign efforts to undermine overall faith in the voting system and rhetoric from Trump.
So when it comes time for voters across Chicago and Illinois to cast their ballots this year, how much faith should they have that they not only will be counted, but counted accurately?
“Elections are more secure today than they have been in modern history, at least since we digitized voting in the United States,” said Jacob Braun, executive director of the Cyber Policy Initiative at the University of Chicago. “That being said, our election systems are still woefully insecure.”
Braun, who served as the White House’s acting principal deputy national cyber director under President Joe Biden, said that belief is driven in part by the fact that many election officials have come to understand that there are real threats to election security and that improvements are necessary.
More context:
The process of prepping for this year’s midterms in Chicago began last summer, according to Max Bever, director of public information with the city’s Board of Elections.
That includes weeks of pretesting touchscreen voting machines, ensuring submitted votes match the expected outcome of the test, uploading results for publication and documenting that testing within a chain of custody. After that’s finished, the machines are secured with a tamperproof seal and locked away in a secure area until it’s time for use.
“Ultimately, we know that the security of our voting machines is the essential part of a trustworthy process for people,” Bever said.
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Sponsor Message
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The Poetry Foundation, the publisher of Poetry magazine, welcomes you to experience it for yourself with FREE public programs and resources! On March 12, Chicago Poet Laureate Mayda del Valle will perform alongside Illinois Poet Laureate Mark Turcotte. Later in the month, straight out of the pages of Poetry, Frank X Walker will read with Affrilachian poets Kelly Norman Ellis, Nikky Finney, and Parneshia Jones.
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Inspector General Deborah Witzburg appears on “Chicago Tonight” on July 21, 2025. (WTTW News)
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Chicago’s Department of Law refused to provide records about the hiring of “high-profile” city employees to the city’s watchdog in violation of city law and a federal court order, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg revealed in a report released Wednesday.
Witzburg, who is set to leave office next month after serving just one term in office, said her office obtained the records by submitting an “anonymous” Freedom of Information Act request for the records at the center of the dispute.
It was “improper” for the department led by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry to refuse to provide those records to the Office of the Inspector General, Witzburg said in a statement.
“(The Department of Law) eventually acknowledged that the very records it withheld from (the Office of the Inspector General) could not properly be exempted even from public release when it produced them in response to an anonymous FOIA request covertly submitted by OIG. This fact is difficult to reconcile with a good faith rationale for refusing to provide them to OIG,” Witzburg said in her statement.
The inspector general’s advisory opinion does not identify the employees whose hiring records the office sought, in keeping with city law.
More context:
Richardson-Lowry acknowledged in a letter to Witzburg, published alongside the inspector general’s advisory opinion, that the inspector general has the authority to monitor city hiring. The Department of Law “did not intentionally fail to comply with” city law, Richardson-Lowry wrote.
But “we recognize that there were inconsistencies in production, which provide an opportunity for (the Department of Law) to review internal processes and procedures. That review has occurred,” Richardson-Lowry wrote.
That review prompted department leaders to take “steps to address any gaps between the coordination of file production for responses to the (Office of the Inspector General) and Freedom of Information Act requests by providing additional training on policy and procedures for administrative employees involved in these tasks,” Richardson-Lowry wrote.
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(WTTW News)
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The number of shootings and homicides recorded across Chicago in February ticked upward compared to the same time last year, when the city was in the midst of historic declines in overall violence.
Data from the Chicago Police Department shows there were 25 homicides and 81 shootings across February, increases of 19% and 8%, respectively, over the same month in 2025.
Month-over-month increases in violence have become less common as the city in 2025 recorded its fewest homicides in 60 years. But even with February’s uptick, Chicago has still seen fewer homicides and shootings through the first two months of 2026 than it did last year.
More data:
According to the CPD data, there have been 54 homicides and 182 shootings thus far this year compared to 62 homicides and 187 shootings through January and February 2025.
Despite that, the number of people who have been shot has risen slightly, with 221 shooting victims in 2026 compared to 215 through 2025’s first two months.
The CPD also said there have been declines of 27% in robberies year-to-date and 38% in robberies involving a firearm, while burglaries (down 22%) and carjackings (16%) are also down through the first two months of 2026.
Total violent crime is down 10%, according to CPD, and officers have recovered more than 1,450 firearms since the start of 2026.
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More From WTTW News:
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Back in the Day: March 6, 1964 - Loyola Runner Tom O’Hara Sets Indoor Mile World Record in Chicago
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You make history if you beat a world record, but Loyola University Chicago runner Tom O’Hara did it twice in 1964. The Chicago-born, St. Ignatius College Prep High School graduate broke the world record for fastest mile when he ran 3:56.6 on Feb. 13, 1964, at an event in New York City. On this day 62 years ago, O’Hara bested his already impressive feat on March 6, 1964, when he clocked a 3:56.4 at a meet in Chicago. That record would hold for the next seven years, but O’Hara remains the last male runner to break a world indoor mile record twice in a year. The latest record holder? Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, whose time was 3:45.14 at a Feb. 13, 2025, event in Liévin,
France.
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Other News From Around Town
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Every Friday, WTTW News highlights interesting stories about Chicago from the local and national press.
Mbekezeli Mbokazi Is the Most Popular Player in MLS You’ve Never Heard Of (The Athletic)
“When Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami, tens of millions of followers flooded the club’s social media channels. Just one TikTok video of Son Heung-min posted by LAFC brought 135,000 new followers.
That was to be expected. They are global superstars.
No one in Chicago, though, was ready for the surge that came after the Fire announced the signing of South African center back Mbekezeli Mbokazi — the most popular player in MLS you haven’t heard of yet.
The 20-year-old is one of the brightest prospects in South African soccer, and when he moved from Orlando Pirates to Chicago, his fans followed. In the first 48 hours after the deal was announced on Dec. 2, 2025, Chicago saw an increase of 180,000 followers across its social media accounts. In the same week the World Cup draw was held in Washington, D.C., and Messi took on Thomas Müller in MLS Cup, it was the Fire that led the league in social media engagement.
More than 572,000 accounts from South Africa follow the Fire, representing a quarter of the team’s social media audience.”
South Side Dance Company Returns To Honor Members Killed in Crash: ‘We Gonna Keep It Going for Both of Them’ (Chicago Sun-Times)
“For just the second time in as many weeks, kids streamed into a basement room at Hamilton Park field house in Englewood.
The Empiire Dance Company is a renowned group, best known locally for its repeated appearances at the city’s annual Bud Billiken parade. They generally practice twice a week, sometimes double that if a big event is on the horizon.
But Wednesday night, they rehearsed for a performance at group member Isaiah ‘Bo’ Flemister’s ‘final curtain call.’ He and another core member of the dance company died in a crash on the Bishop Ford last month.
This weekend, the group plans to dance in sync with a video of Flemister’s footwork routine, filmed two days before the crash.
‘It’ll be like he’s dancing with us,’ said Latisha Waters, co-CEO of Empiire Dance Company.”
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What’s your favorite Chicago-set TV show?
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published. Here's what you had to
say:
“My favorite show set in Chicago is ‘ER’ -- but my favorite comedy set in Chicago is ‘Family Matters’” — @Chris81Red
“The Bob Newhart Show” — @mompat.bsky.social
“‘Happy Endings’ for sure” — @d4blog.bsky.social
“‘South Side!’ As soon as she said ‘yes I went to kenwood, yes I knew eddy curry we used to go together’ I knew I was home.” — @thedazzlingone.bsky.social
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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry
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