10242018 - News Article - Complaints about Porter County absentee ballots are focus of secretary of state candidate's press conference

Complaints about Porter County absentee ballots are focus of secretary of state candidate's press conference
Chicago Tribune
October 24, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-porter-jim-harper-st-1025-story.html

Twila Sier said her husband went to the Porter County Clerk’s Office about two weeks ago to get forms to request absentee ballots for the both of them since she will be undergoing surgery in Chicago on Election Day.

As instructed, he turned the forms in the next day so they could get their absentee ballots.

“We still have nothing and it’s been almost two weeks,” said Sier, of Valparaiso, adding she and her husband opted to vote at the Porter County Administration Building, an early voting site, on Tuesday rather than wait for their ballots to come in the mail.

On Wednesday, Sier stood with Democrat Jim Harper, who’s running for Indiana Secretary of State, outside the Porter County Administration Building as he outlined concerns brought to his attention about early voting and the electoral process in Porter County.

Those include allegations that voters are not receiving absentee ballots in a timely fashion; absentee ballots have not been stored properly with two locks; and some poll workers still waiting on their Election Day assignments less than two weeks before the Nov. 6 election.

“I’m hearing numerous credible reports about issues of election administration here in Porter County,” said Harper, of Valparaiso, adding the secretary of state is the chief election officer of the state. “There’s no greater responsibility than casting a ballot and every election being fair.”

Harper, who said he has received about 10 calls about how elections in the county are being handled, said the sum total of the concerns calls into question the ability of the Porter County Clerk’s Office to handle the election, and the secretary of state’s office is not stepping in to help out or solve the problems.

“It’s clear that the office needs more resources and the office of the secretary of state should be providing some oversight because it’s clear that state law is not being followed,” he said.

Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic director in the county’s Voter Registration Office and the current Democratic proxy for the county election board, said that office handled the elections until earlier this year. In early March, the election board voted 2-1 along party lines to give election duties to Clerk Karen Martin after Kozuszek 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.

State officials said at the time Porter County was the only county in Indiana where elections were handled by the voter registration office, and in the most of the state, those duties are undertaken by the clerk’s office.

Kozuszek said ballots should be sent out to voters the day the clerk’s office receives their applications, and that both Democrats and Republicans should have keyed access to absentee ballots.

“Everybody makes mistakes but not when it’s for voters,” she said. “If we lose one vote, we’ve lost too many.”

Martin, reached later by phone, said absentee ballot requests are being processed in a timely fashion and ballots are going out within a day of when requests are received.

Martin, a Republican who also is on the election board, also said that Democratic and Republican representatives in her office have access to the keys for where the ballots are kept. Members of the election board can request the keys, she said, which are for the door to the room where the ballots are stored and for a container in which they are kept.

The matter came up during the primary, she said, and the method qualifies under state statute.

As far as poll worker assignments, Martin said it is up to party chairs to make those assignments and the situation is fluid as more people sign up to work.

“There are some who have not been placed,” she said, adding online training is available for judges and clerks, who are not required under state statute to attend classes, though inspectors are. Still, she added, classes are available for all three classifications of poll workers.

No formal complaints about the election process have been filed to the election board, said Republican David Bengs, the board’s president.