07042003 - News Article - Candidate seeks new election - Anderson to contest town judge outcome in Lake Superior Court - ROBERT CANTRELL

Candidate seeks new election
Anderson to contest town judge outcome in Lake Superior Court
NWI Times
Jul 4, 2003
nwitimes.com/news/local/candidate-seeks-new-election/article_4bc50ed3-979d-5892-9f31-3cf45062dd2c.html
SCHERERVILLE -- Town judge contender Ken Anderson is taking his allegations of voter fraud in May's tight primary election to court, hoping to get a new election.

Anderson, a Highland attorney, lost the Democratic primary to incumbent Town Judge Deborah Riga by 11 votes. He recently lost a fight to have an election panel throw out illegal votes and other votes that would have propelled him to the general election.

Now, Anderson is taking a different route. He is asking a Lake County judge to order a new primary election in Schererville, or at least in the part of Schererville where he contends voter fraud took place.

"We think we have substantial evidence of fraud," Anderson said. "The people who have supported me are insisting that I continue forward. I can't let them down."

To get a new election, Anderson must clear a high hurdle. He will have to convince Lake Superior Court Judge Mary Beth Bonaventura that corruption in an election for a position that hands out justice was rampant enough to throw the outcome of the election.

Bonaventura has the discretion to order a new, district-wide primary election or a new election in certain precincts if she buys his case, said Kristi Robertson, co-director of the Secretary of State's Election Division. Bonaventura can't just toss out the tainted votes, according to state law.

"Ultimately you want the voters to decide, not a judge or election panel," Robertson said.

Anderson has shown election officials evidence that four people voted with mail-in ballots even though they hadn't lived in Schererville for several years. He says the same person who signed up those people to vote via mail also signed up more than 20 absentee voters in an east side precinct. And many of those signatures do not match, he said.

Anderson won the primary at the polls, but Riga eked out a win with a flood of absentee ballots in her favor.

An election panel agreed with Anderson's findings, but didn't feel it met state requirements for tossing out ballots. The panel would have had to disregard the whole precinct -- almost 200 votes -- and didn't think the evidence of corruption presented by Anderson was strong enough to do so.

With the new challenge, Anderson plans to present the same evidence. He also might question some absentee voters under oath about whether they were legally allowed to vote by mail.

"An absentee ballot isn't supposed to be given out willy-nilly," he said. "That is not what the statute is meant for, but it is used that way for unscrupulous people to get more votes."

Voters are allowed to apply for mail-in ballots if they have disabilities or are injured, 65 or older, in the military, expecting to work 12 hours on election day or be out of town.

Anderson is currently drafting the needed documents and plans to file early next week. He filed to contest the election several weeks ago, but pursued the recount first. The judge must first decide whether to even move forward with the case, because Riga has asked the judge to dismiss the hearings.

There is no set deadline for the judge to order a new election, so long as the primary can be redone before November's general election ballots are printed, Robertson said.

Riga could not be reached for comment.