Soon after the investigation started, it became evident that this was not a case of isolated wrongdoing, but rather a case of extensive, substantial, and widespread fraud in precincts and wards throughout Chicago. The FBI investigators concluded that their regular tools-interviewing witnesses, obtaining documents, and using handwriting experts to analyze signatures on documents-would not be up to the task. After all, to conduct a complete investigation, they would have to review "virtually all of the 1,000,000 ballot applications submitted in the City of Chicago in the November election" as well as the voter lists maintained by the election board for all of Chicago's 2,910 precincts (comprising approximately 1.6 million voters) to check for the names of voters registered in more than one precinct, as well as registered voters who were dead.[19]
So the FBI employed a new and unique tool in vote fraud investigation: a computer. Because this had never been done before, the FBI had to write a computer program that would match data between the list of registered voters, the list of individuals who had voted, and other databases. To that end, the FBI and federal prosecutors obtained death records from the Bureau of Vital Statistics; local, state, and federal prison records; the national Social Security list; Immigration and Naturalization Service records on aliens; driver's license records; and even utility (gas, electric, water, and telephone) records.[20]
Locker was shocked at the sheer magnitude of the number of fraudulent votes and the fact that fraud occurred in every single Chicago precinct.[21] More than 3,000 votes had been cast in the names of individuals who were dead, and more than 31,000 individuals had voted twice in different locations in the city.[22] Thousands of individuals had supposedly voted despite being incarcerated at the time of the election, and utility records showed that some individuals who voted were registered as living on vacant lots.