Porter County voting results released 3 days after election; officials call for clerk's resignation
Chicago Tribune
November 09, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-porter-county-election-results-st-1110-story.html
In light of a lengthy list of election woes for Porter County’s midterm election, including a preliminary tally of results that wasn’t complete until Friday, the Porter County Board of Commissioners and two members of the County Council are asking for the immediate resignation of Clerk Karen Martin.
Commissioners made their request after election board officials announced the results were online during a sometimes heated news conference.
“Under normal circumstances, the board of commissioners would have never suggested anything like that. I think Karen’s conduct after Tuesday night is what convinced us that something had to be done,” said Commissioner Jim Biggs, R-North. “Being MIA at a time when her leadership was at its highest need – short of someone taking my legs from me, I would have been there. I would have had to be there. It was unfortunate but it needed to be said.”
Martin said via text message that she will be finishing her term. She declined additional comment, including on commissioners’ request for the FBI to investigate the election for allegations of election law violations. Biggs and county attorney Scott McClure met with the FBI for two hours Thursday afternoon; it is not immediately known if the federal agency will undertake an investigation.
Once the results were known, Martin, a Republican, lost in a bid for county auditor to incumbent Vicki Urbanik, a Democrat, according to preliminary vote totals. Martin, in her second term, could not seek a third term as county clerk under state statute.
Democrat Jessica Bailey received more than 50 percent of the votes to lead in her bid for county clerk, according to preliminary election results, over Republican Jon Miller, the county’s current recorder.
Also calling on Martin to resign are Porter County Councilmen Dan Whitten D-At large, and Jeremy Rivas, D-2nd.
“Although elections do not fall under the council’s control, numerous, repeated inquiries were made to the clerk and the election board to ensure they had all the resources necessary to facilitate this election,” they said in a joint statement.
“Assurances were given that no additional resources were needed, that the election was under control. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. It is very clear the clerk recklessly failed at her duty. As elected officials, we believe it is our responsibility and obligation to call for the immediate resignation of Karen Martin.”
Election Day in Porter County was rife with problems, including delayed election results, 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.
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.
During a sometimes testy exchange with the crowd Friday outside the voter registration office waiting on the election results, representatives of the election board and voter registration deflected criticism about how the election was handled.
“We did our best,” said J.J. Stankiewicz, the lone Democrat on the board, adding late-opening polls remained open longer to accommodate voters.
Kozuszek said her office didn’t handle the election.
“I did what I could from day one to protect voters,” she said, adding she, too, offered assistance to Martin, who said she didn’t need it. “There’s nothing I could do.”
Martin, who did not attend Friday’s announcement about the results, makes up the third member of the election board.
“To be running for office and be on a three-member board can tilt the way things are done,” Stankiewicz said “It stinks to high heaven.”
Commissioners also said the election board should request “any and all investigations” of the election that are available through the Indiana Secretary of State’s Election Division and the Indiana State Police, and said if the election board didn’t make the requests, the commissioners’ office “shall make every effort within its statutory powers to get those authorities to open an investigation.”
Additionally, commissioners requested the county council, the election board and party chairs join with them “to immediately begin a bipartisan effort to determine any and all actions that must be taken to assure that such a failure never happens again,” something they said is “absolutely critical to begin the process of restoring voter confidence in our elections.”
“We have to earn back the trust which is said to have been lost,” Stankiewicz said.
The election board is amenable to change.
“It’s going to be done across the board, with the council and commissioners, so it can be done on a united front that all parties are confident of,” Bengs said.
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