Porter County officials predict Friday release of vote totals
Chicago Tribune
November 08, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-porter-county-votes-st-1109-story.html
Voters and candidates can expect the results Friday from Porter County’s general election.
During an announcement Thursday outside the voter registration office in the county administration building, members of the county’s election board said they are confident they have all of the ballots from Tuesday’s election.
Officials want a reliable, thorough counting of the ballots, said board president David Bengs, a Republican. Ballots are being counted in the administration building.
“When the count is complete in full, that is when the numbers will be released,” he said, adding the board estimates that will be sometime Friday, and the public will be notified two hours in advance before the results go live on the county’s website.
The last delay in election results was during the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush, when results were held up for about two days, said J.J. Stankiewicz, the lone Democrat on the county’s election board.
More than 18,000 early voting and mail-in ballots are being tabulated, officials said, noting that taking each ballot out of its sealed envelope adds to the amount of time the count is taking. Tallying of the votes started Wednesday morning.
“They’re feeding the ballots through the machine manually,” Bengs said, adding that typically is done on Election Day at each precinct instead of in total at the administration building.
By noon Thursday, officials said they were more than halfway through the ballots; those remaining are from Center and Portage townships, the two largest in the county.
“Our main goal, getting it done, is code word ‘reliable.’ We hope we’ve got all the ballots. We hope we’ve got reliable people,” Stankiewicz said, adding there is spirit to get the job done but the focus is on reliability rather than speed.
“We think we’ve got our eyes on the prize,” he said.
Election Day in Porter County was rife with problems, including 12 precincts that stayed open later than planned because they did not open on time, and absentee ballots not being distributed to precincts to be counted by the time the polls closed.
Representatives from the board of commissioners met with the FBI Thursday afternoon about the election problems so the federal agency could determine whether to initiate an investigation. Commissioners President Jeff Good, R-Center, has removed himself from the process because he is on the ballot for a second term.
Commissioner Jim Biggs, R-North, confirmed he and county attorney Scott McClure met with the FBI for about two hours.
“I cannot and will not comment on anything we said or that was said to us,” Biggs said.
Clerk Karen Martin, the other Republican on the election board, declined comment during Thursday’s announcement. Martin, who is on the ballot for county auditor, is in her second and final term as county clerk per state statute.
In early March, the election board voted 2-1 along party lines to give election duties to the clerk’s office after Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic director in the county’s voter registration office, sent a letter to some election board and party officials stating she would no longer handle elections because doing so ran afoul of state statute.
Two deputies from voter registration are counting the ballots, along with four people working for the election board who assisted with early voting, officials said. The ballot counters are split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
Also involved are Kenard Taylor, watching the process for the Republicans, and Nelson Pichardo, who is doing so for the Democrats.
“They know what they’re looking for,” Kozuszek said of the ballot counters. She is overseeing the process with her Republican counterpart, Sundae Schoon.
Kozuszek added that officials are handling the largest midterm election turnout she’s seen in the 18 years she’s been with the office. The county also has never had as large of a hand count, she added.
“Every absentee that we received will be counted. That’s why we’re here,” Schoon said.
Once all of those ballots are counted, officials said, they will know how many provisional ballots remain to be counted on Nov. 16, the day the election board will certify the results. State statute requires the results be certified 10 days after the election.
There are three sets of provisional ballots: one for voters who cast ballots the morning of Oct. 27 in Portage but whose ballots were not properly initialed by poll workers and could not come back in to vote anew; a second for any ballots set aside during normal polling place hours on Election Day; and the third for ballots cast at 12 precincts that remained open after regular voting hours ended at 6 p.m.
Officials can determine what went wrong during the election after all of the results are in, Stankiewicz said. Municipal elections take place in the county next year.
“There will be a hindsight look at how do we make it better,” he said.
About 15 people, including some candidates waiting on the election returns, stood in the hallway outside the office to hear the election board’s update.
Councilman Dan Whitten, D-At-large, was among the crowd that gathered for the update.
“This is the worst case of incompetence and perhaps voter suppression I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, alleging Martin is either incompetent or committed election fraud. “Pick your poison. This is ridiculous.”
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