Behind the voting curtain
Corrupt operatives use loopholes to steal offices
NWI Times
Aug 3, 2003
nwitimes.com/news/local/behind-the-voting-curtain/article_23cd4c05-9247-5220-867c-306f6ce63c21.html
An over-inflated list of registered voters coupled with impotent laws and an inundated election department make it easy for corrupt political operatives to vote early and vote often in Lake County.
Evidence of illegal voting has been seeping out of election battles in East Chicago and Schererville since May's primary. And for years, the regular news after elections has been accusations of absentee ballot chicanery.
The propensity for voter fraud may continue because the ability to steal an election is rooted deep in election law and policy. Those concerned about voter fraud are hoping programs in the works will help quell impostor voting, but those solutions are at best years away.
The facets of election law and policy that bring about the capacity to steal votes are twofold.
First, the list of people allowed to vote is still swollen with the names of those that have either moved or died. Second, state law and an over stretched election department make it easy for corrupt campaigners to vote in the name of people not purged from the list.
Some estimates say 30 percent of the people on voter registration lists have either moved, died or gone to jail, said Julia Vaughn, policy director of Indiana's Common Cause, a watchdog group.
Meanwhile, state law directs the county to provide campaigners a list detailing the name and address of every registered voter. So, by canvassing a neighborhood it is easy to spot who's moved or died but is still listed as eligible to vote.
At the same time, voting in those people's names through the mail is almost as simple.
The only information routinely screened when an absentee ballot is requested is the same information given to the campaigners. The signature - one of few real safeguards in the process - is often not compared to the original voter registration card by election department staff, who are usually swamped with ballot requests, director Sally LaSota and other county election officials said.
State law does not require that initial security measure be taken so the lapse can allow forged applications to slip by undetected, with ballots sent out to anywhere a scheming campaigner chooses.
"I think it always would be a good idea to check that signature," said Kristi Robertson, co-director of the secretary of state's election division. "That is the only way we verify the voter is who they say they are."
Furthermore, during absentee ballot counting, state law requires the signed ballot only be checked against the signed application, again ignoring the original registration signature. The vast majority of registrations do not have identification numbers, a security process that only began this year.
"It appears someone has taken advantage of exactly that," said election board attorney Bruce Lambka, who is working on the contested Schererville town judge primary. "You're going to get people who find the weaknesses in the system."
Three members of the Drljaca family are recorded as voting via mail in May's Democratic Schererville town judge primary. The Drljaca family moved from its Schererville home to Norridge, Ill., two years ago. Regardless, the ballots were mailed to a home in Crown Point, filled out, mailed back and counted. The Drljaca family has testified it knew nothing about the ballots.
It is perhaps the strongest evidence Schererville town judge contender Kenneth Anderson has to support his claim that voter fraud contributed to his 11-vote loss to incumbent Judge Deborah Riga.
Similar allegations of voter fraud have cropped up during a court challenge to East Chicago's Democratic Party mayoral primary, in which eight-term incumbent Robert Pastrick defeated City Councilman George Pabey.
While the problem and its effects are clear, the blame is diluted.
State and federal election laws are forged in heated debates between two opposing concerns - making voting easy and ensuring honest elections.
"That is the tightrope we must walk," Vaughn said. "You don't want the county making a decision that takes a registered voter off the rolls in error."
Inflated voter registration lists
The federal motor voter law, which many officials blame for bloated registration logs, passed in 1993 through a similar bout. The law made voter registration available in more places, including drivers licensing facilities.
The election law overhaul also outlawed most techniques used to clear dead weight from voter logs, creating an obese book riddled with the names of voters who have moved, died or been jailed in the past eight years, officials said.
LaSota said the list is gushing with extra votes that could be stolen.
"It is just something we deal with," she said.
Instead of regularly purging the list of inactive voters as done previously, election officials are now supposed to network with other government agencies to identify voters that have moved or died. However, the system has turned into a dismal alternative, with information rarely being exchanged, Robertson and other election officials said.
The only immediate fix LaSota sees is sending a postcard to every registered voter for verification. The mass mailing would cost at least $60,000 each time, an expense that would need county council approval, officials said.
A new statewide computerized list connected to coroners' offices and utility records may help eliminate invalid names from the rolls. That system probably won't be running until July 2006, Robertson said.
Sign here
Many officials and observers blame the election department's lack of staff, money and time for the porous safeguards that cover voting by mail. State law requires absentee ballots be mailed out within 24 hours from the time applications are received.
Officials said the requirement forces the election staff to speed through the verification process because the office, at times, receives hundreds of applications a day.
"It gets really crazy in here," LaSota said.
In addition, many original signatures are stashed deep in the bowels of the county election department's filing cabinets.
When they can, LaSota said staff members do their best to compare the ones that have been scanned into a computer database. When they do come across a gross discrepancy, state law instructs them to error on the side of the voter.
"We are not handwriting experts," LaSota said.
The weak safeguards prompted Michael McPhillips, assistant director of the elections department, to ask some staff members this year to "go the extra step" and eyeball the scanned signatures, he said.
Scrutinizing all the signatures with a day time limit is an impossible task for the county's staff of 24, which oversees elections, as well as verifying registrations, printing ballots and filing campaign records, said Lambka, an election board attorney.
"There may just physically not be enough people and enough time to (check all the signatures)," he said.
Some outside observers also said the departments are hampered by limited resources.
"It is a problem," said Edith Dallinger, president of Indiana's League of Women Voters. "Almost without exception, the election offices are very heavily worked and not very liberally funded."
The apparent cracks in election law have spurred political figures and good government groups alike to call for a solution.
Vaughn said state lawmakers could solve the problem.
"It might make sense to go back and take a look at the statutes and give counties more flexibility in terms of turnaround early in the process," she said. "Preserving the sanctity of elections is the most important thing that that office (the county election board) will do."
Political leaders want fix
Both county party chiefs agree a voter list filled with ghost voting opportunities begs for repair.
"Until we can purge the list and clean it up, we will keep having these problems," said John Curley, chairman of the Lake County Republican Party.
Lake County Auditor Stephen Stiglich, chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party, said it may be an issue for the state Legislature to address, and he added that properly punishing those caught stealing ballots will ultimately deter the practice.
"The word would get out that you better not monkey around," Stiglich said. "If there were people in this past primary that did it I think those people should be taken to the county prosecutor. They should be dealt with swiftly."
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