Dozens of Porter County voters asked to recast ballots after poll worker oversight
Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-porter-unsigned-ballots-st-1101-story.html
The 122 voters who cast ballots between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the North County Government Complex in Portage are being asked to do so again during early voting after their ballots didn’t receive the necessary initials from two poll workers at the early voting site.
During an explosive Porter County Election Board meeting Wednesday, J.J. Stankiewicz, the board’s lone Democrat, offered a resolution that would have given those voters the opportunity to skip coming back in and have their ballots count as provisional, to be counted when results are certified 10 days after Election Day.
“They’ve already been approved once. This is as redundant as all get-out,” Stankiewicz said.
The motion died for a lack of a second.
Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic director in the county’s voter registration office, said she was made aware of the problem, caused by two poll workers working as fill-ins, Saturday morning. She told the workers to separate those ballots and quarantine them and consulted with an attorney with the election division of the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office.
The election board held an emergency meeting Monday morning to determine how to move forward and decided to reach out to as many of the voters as possible to come back and vote again.
About 30 people attended the meeting, which devolved into shouting at times, including several elected officials and candidates on the ballot. Many of them displayed open displeasure with the board’s decision and offered comments or questions.
“This is a terrible disenfranchisement of voters,” said Portage Township Trustee Brendan Clancy.
Kozuszek and Victoria Gresham, vice chair of the county’s Republican Party and the Republican representative in the clerk’s office, contacted as many of the voters as they could but could not reach several of them because they lacked the proper contact information.
Kozuszek said she reached five voters who were willing to come back in.
“They’re very disillusioned about it,” she said.
Clerk Karen Martin, a Republican member of the board along with board president David Bengs, asked whether there was a problem previously with ballots not being initialed. Her office is handling the election for the first time this year after it was removed from the control of the Voter Registration Office in early March.
“I’ve never seen a ballot that didn’t have both initials on it,” Kozuszek said.
Board attorney Lowe said he thought a disservice was being done to voters if they weren’t called back in, and using a provisional ballot increased the ability under state law to determine the ballot was invalid.
“The easiest correction is to have them come back in during early voting and cast their other ballot aside,” he said, noting state statute requires initials from a poll worker from each party.
“That is a threat. It’s the government that screwed up, not the voter,” Stankiewicz responded.
Early voting continues place from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. through Friday in Suite 102A of the Porter County Administration Building, 155 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso; the meeting room of Chesterton Town Hall, 726 Broadway; the rotunda of the North County Government Complex, 3560 Willowcreek Road, Portage; Union Township Volunteer Fire Station 2, 267 N. County Road 600 West, Valparaiso; and the Hebron Community Center, 611 N. Main St.
Early voting also takes place at the same times and places on Saturday. Early voting concludes at all locations at noon Monday.
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