A fraud on Cook County voters

The Chicago Tribune has an editorial on a giant scam against many Cook County voters:

For 117 days since he suffered a stroke, Cook County Board President John Stroger has been incommunicado, with aides and family members asserting that they are relaying his wishes. The record suggests that those surrogates have misled citizens about Stroger's health.

The plain goal of this unethical--if not illegal--fraud on voters and taxpayers is for Democratic politicos to keep control of the county patronage and contracts that cement their own power. The surrogates and politicos have exploited John Stroger, manipulating information about the infirmity of a man evidently unable to speak publicly for himself. They've said whatever they had to, first so a reform challenger wouldn't beat the impaired Stroger in a Democratic primary race, then to discourage any third-party candidate from running in the November general election.

No word yet on the New York Times objecting to one party control of government for decades in Cook County.