I'm fairly certain that they don't teach Illinois state election codes at Harvard.
For those who don't feel like trying to follow Varus's vague claims, Mrs. Obama was at a polling location in Chicago for early voting.
She supposedly told someone she met with outside the place that it was important to vote to keep her husband's agenda moving. This could potentially be a violation of state law since you are prohibited from campaigning or electioneering within 100' of the polling place (the actual machines, if the building was 200' long you could be in the building and still legally campaign).
Of course, the code also leaves enforcement to the election judges and, having served as an election judge and gone through the training on two different occasions, I can tell you that the penalty for campaigning within 100' is to be asked to please step outside the 100' area. Refusal to move along could potentially result in a Class A misdemeanor.
10 ILCS 5/29‑11 wrote:
Failure to comply with order of election authority. Any person who knowingly fails or refuses to comply with any lawful order of an election authority issued by the election authority in the performance of the duties of the election authority, shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.
You could also get hit with a Class A misdemeanor charge if they could prove you were knowingly and intentionally violating the elections law but that'd require a burden of evidence that'd be lacking in most cases of electioneering.
There's obviously stiffer penalties for other election style crimes such as ballot stuffing or voter intimidation with are both Class 4 felonies but none of that applies here.
Edited, Oct 15th 2010 10:46am by Jophiel 
