11292018 - News Article - Officials: Porter County election director bailed on job before she was removed

Officials: Porter County election director bailed on job before she was removed
NWI Times
November 29, 2018
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/officials-porter-county-election-director-bailed-on-job-before-she/article_f98d1920-9d49-523e-a410-9bd8926a2490.html

VALPARAISO — In a December 2017 email, Kathy Kozuszek told officials running elections was "not our job."

"That email made it clear that the voter registration office would no longer be running the elections," said David Bengs, chairman of the Porter County Election Board.

The Election Board soon after moved the responsibility of running elections from the Porter County Voter Registration office, where Kozuszek works, to the Porter County Clerk's office.

In a federal lawsuit filed earlier this week, Kozuszek contends election responsibilities were removed from the voter registration to clerk's office in retaliation for her requesting overtime pay from the county. The request for overtime pay came after the employee status of Kozuszek, the Democrat director in the voter registration office, and Sundae Schoon, the Republican director, was changed from "non-exempt" to "exempt." The change denied the two payment of overtime.

Kozuszek also contends moving the election responsibility to the clerk's office was the direct cause of the problems within the Nov. 6 election, delaying vote counts for about three days.

Kozuszek's attorney, Ivan Bodensteiner, of Valparaiso, said Bengs and others are not interpreting Kozuszek's email correctly.

"It certainly was not a refusal to run the elections. It was not an indication she wouldn't do the job," said Bodensteiner, adding the email does not change the veracity of the lawsuit.

County Council President Andy Bozak, R-1st, agreed with Bengs, saying when the email was forwarded to the County Council he took it as "giving her notice" and she was no longer going to be involved in running elections in the county.

In the email, Kozuszek tells members of the Election Board and the Republican and Democratic Party chairmen that elections in Porter County are being run in violation of state law. She included attachments of state code outlining the responsibilities of both the Election Board and voters registration office.

"Sundae and I have conducted all elections for Porter County operating outside the scope of the law. NO more for me!" Kozuszek writes.

She also suggests the Election Board hire deputy election commissioners in lieu of elections being run by her office. She dissuades the board from giving the authority to the county clerk, which the Election Board did about two months later.

"Make the elections in Porter County legal!  I don't relish the thought of turning potential candidates away from the Voters Registration office when they come in to file for office by sending them to our absent (from any and all elections) clerk, or (Porter County Election Board members) Dave (Bengs) and JJ (Stankiewicz). If the decision is made to ask for Deputy Election Commissioners it must be done soon and in a public meeting per Indiana State Statute," Kozuszek wrote.

Bodensteiner said Kozuszek didn't bring up anything new in the discussion of Porter County elections in the email. Others had raised the same issue of changing who ran elections to comply with state law, several times in the past, but nothing was done then.