Secretary of state pledges to help improve Porter County elections; Dems demand state police investigation
NWI Times
November 13, 2018
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/secretary-of-state-pledges-to-help-improve-porter-county-elections/article_ec22f7c3-ade3-5742-b41b-15085b4a283e.html
INDIANAPOLIS — Secretary of State Connie Lawson has agreed to assist Porter County election officials in figuring out what went wrong in last week's general election and to put in place processes that ensure future elections run far more smoothly.
The state's chief elections officer, a Republican, pledged to aid Porter County after a Tuesday meeting at the Statehouse with state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, that followed a letter he penned to Lawson Monday detailing the late-opening and understaffed polling places, untrained poll workers and delayed ballot processing that voters encountered one week earlier.
Soliday explained that Lawson won't necessarily be investigating the Porter County election fiasco from a criminal perspective, though he said she could call in the state police or the state's inspector general, if necessary.
Rather, the secretary of state would be helping to identify the errors that occurred in preparing for last week's election and during the three-day ballot count delay, while sharing best practices employed by other counties that could be put to use in Porter County before the municipal primary election just six months away.
"There are people calling for an investigation. What's the crime alleged? Things did not happen smoothly," Soliday said. "Incompetence is not a crime."
"The goal is to restore voter confidence that my vote is going to get counted as I cast it, and it's going to be counted in a timely way."
Soliday said Lawson is the logical person to assist Porter County because more than anyone else "she understands state election law; she oversees state election law."
"There are so many accusations going back and forth that you just need to bring in a third party," Soliday said.
"Have a third party do an analysis of what went wrong, and then share that with the commissioners and the council and the new clerk," he said.
Lawson said she will not get involved until after Porter County certifies its election results Friday since she was a candidate on the ballot, even though her unofficial statewide victory margin was greater than her Porter County vote tally.
Democrats want state police review
Drew Wenger, chairman of the Valparaiso Democratic Committee, also is seeking an outside review of the Porter County elections.
But he contends the state police should lead it.
"The people of Porter County deserve to know if the election was fair or not," he said. "We all deserve to know the truth about exactly what happened during the weeks and months leading up the election, who created this mess and why it happened."
"After we find out the truth about what happened, then we can move forward to work on rebuilding the trust of the people," Wenger said. "Right now, we need to take this one step at a time to ensure that the people of Porter County know that justice is served."
Wenger objected to Soliday calling in Lawson to lead the effort to restore public confidence in Porter County elections.
"It’s no surprise to me that Indiana state Rep. Ed Soliday has called in a politician from Indianapolis to investigate this. Instead of more political involvement in this chaos, we actually need less. We need an investigation handled locally by the Indiana State Police branch in Lowell, not by an Indianapolis politician."
Soliday shot back by saying that Wenger's Democratic committee isn't really interested in a broad analysis of what went wrong, and what policies and procedures are needed to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"They want to find somebody guilty of something and punish them. And they want to make it all political," Soliday said.
"They know that they have as much responsibility in this as anyone else. This is not a one-party issue."
Soliday also condemned Wenger's implication that Lawson, the Indianapolis politician, would be unable to fairly assist Porter County because she is a Republican.
"I consider it despicable that they would suggest that the secretary of state of this state is dishonest, and I find it beneath them," Soliday said.
In addition, Soliday pointed out that Wegner's demand for a state police investigation has the same issue, since the state police commissioner was appointed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and the political action committee for the state police officers' union endorsed Soliday's re-election bid.
Soliday also chuckled at Wenger's insistence that state police from the Lowell post lead the investigation.
"That's Lake County! They want Lake County to investigate? I'm somewhat shocked that Porter County people would want Lake County to investigate," Soliday said.
Wenger contends that Porter County Republicans actually are using the election problems to "justify eliminating precinct polling locations" and replacing them with 13 countywide vote centers that he said would "disenfranchise voters."
Soliday said vote centers "could have solved a lot of problems" this go around. But he insisted, "I don't want to be in that fight."
"I want a process, and I don't care what it is," he said. "I don't object to any recommendation that works."
Calls for action began last week
The Porter County Board of Commissioners called on the county election board last week to seek an investigation into the election by the Indiana Secretary of State's Election Division and the Indiana State Police.
On Tuesday, the commissioners, led by Republican Jim Biggs, directly approved that request to the secretary of state for a state police investigation.
Biggs also revealed that he and county attorney Scott McClure already have given information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He said nothing criminal necessarily happened, but he wants every angle looked at to fully uncover what went wrong so there’s a complete fix before the next election.
"We're going to do everything within our statutory authority to find out exactly what happened here," Biggs said.
Valparaiso resident Sheila Sweeney, who was among a crowd of candidates and voters to wait more than two hours outside the county voter registration office Friday until the delayed vote count was released, said, "Right now I don't trust Porter County to host an election."
Missing from that gathering Friday was Republican Election Board member and Porter County Clerk Karen Martin, who has been held largely to blame for the election problems.
The county commissioners have called on Martin to immediately resign as clerk. Martin lost her bid this week to unseat Democratic Porter County Auditor Vicki Urbanik.
Democratic Porter County Council members Dan Whitten and Jeremy Rivas made the same request of Martin, saying they as council members were assured by Martin and the Election Board that they had the resources necessary to carry out the election.
Martin said Friday afternoon, "I will be finishing my term."
The county commissioners have said they want to see a bipartisan effort in the county to determine what actions must be taken to assure this type of election failure does not occur again.
"This cooperative and bipartisan effort is absolutely critical to begin the process of restoring voter confidence in our elections," according to the commissioners.
Democratic Commissioner Laura Blaney said there’s been talk of posting on the county government website the responsibilities of a poll worker to help with any future uncertainty about the job.
"There’s not many people who really know what’s supposed to happen, and I think that causes a lot of problems,"’ she said.
Biggs alleged there’s a rift between the offices of county clerk and voters registration, along with nepotism.
He said it’s possible the process to some degree was sabotaged because somebody should have noticed there were problems and stepped in so they could be fixed before the scheduled tabulating.
"I can't help to think some of it was deliberately set up," he said. "It's difficult for me to believe just one individual is responsible for the total unmitigated collapse."
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