Porter County officials to meet with FBI about possible election violations
Chicago Tribune
November 07, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-porter-county-voting-st-1108-story.html
The day after the handling of Tuesday’s general election in Porter County left candidates waiting on results and voters wondering if there ballots had been counted, officials announced the FBI is being called in to possibly investigate the election, preliminary results likely won’t be available until Thursday, and protesters gathered outside the administration building to share their election concerns.
The Porter County Board of Commissioners will meet with representatives from the FBI Thursday afternoon to go over what officials say are scores of alleged violations of election law and potentially start an investigation that could include County Clerk Karen Martin, who was responsible for overseeing the election.
Commissioners announced that they had reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to request an investigation Wednesday.
The move comes after an Election Day in Porter County rife with problems, including delayed election results that are now expected Thursday, 12 precincts that stayed open later than planned because they did not open on time, and absentee ballots not being distributed to precincts to be counted by the time the polls closed. Officials have said more than 15,000 early ballots were cast in the election.
The potential violations of election law, said Commissioner Jim Biggs, R-North, include the chain of custody for votes brought in from polling places, the possible deliberate tampering of signatures, and an instance where ballots were taken to a poll worker’s home.
A sheriff’s deputy recovered those, Biggs said, and they had not been tampered with.
Martin is also a potential focus for any investigation, Biggs said, adding the FBI will ultimately decide whether to initiate a probe.
“That’s all part of it,” Biggs said of Martin, who at the end of her second and final term as clerk, per state statute. “She ran the election. It’s important that everybody understands her side of that.”
Martin did not return multiple requests for comment Tuesday night or Wednesday left via text message because her voicemail was full.
In early March, the election board voted 2-1 along party lines to give election duties to the clerk’s office after Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic director in the county’s voter registration office, 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.
Biggs and Commissioner Laura Blaney, D-South, along with county attorney Scott McClure, made the decision to approach the FBI. Commissioners President Jeff Good, R-Center is on the ballot for a second term in office and was made aware of the move, Biggs said.
Commissioners felt the need for an outside agency to investigate, Biggs said, adding the FBI has a special taskforce to investigate election matters. It’s commissioners’ job to assure that if there was deliberate wrongdoing in the election, those responsible are held accountable, he added.
“The investigation will not impede in any way tallying the final results,” Biggs said, adding those are expected sometime Thursday. “We’re as surprised as anybody about the activity of (Tuesday) night, the news today that they’re still not going to be available.”
The election board is working to ensure a reliable count, said the board’s lone Democrat, J.J. Stankiewicz, adding the counting is taking place in a secure, sealed environment with witnesses.
Stankiewicz said he and David Bengs, a Republican and the board president, agreed the results had to be reliable. Martin makes up the third member of the board.
“The ballots are being counted and the key word is, we’re trying to be reliable and we hope that will end at least by (Thursday), but the process is under way,” he said. “We’ve got a system in place. There’s no sense to predict.”
Stankiewicz said that process “will end when it ends” and he and Bengs, both attorneys, will “see if we’re at a stage of reliability.”
Porter County Republican Party Chair Michael Simpson said his focus for now is getting the ballots counted, and added there is a bipartisan effort to make sure the ballots are preserved with security.
“There will be plenty of time to dissect what went wrong or who’s to blame,” he said.
Meanwhile, the board of commissioners also announced Wednesday that all ballots were protected at all times after they were delivered to the administration building Tuesday night in a room guarded by a Porter County Sheriff’s Department deputy.
To assure the integrity of the vote count, commissioners also ordered the sheriff’s department to secure all areas where votes are being counted, as well as the election office in the courthouse.
Sheriff David Reynolds said officials didn’t want anything moved in or out of the office without prior approval.
“They wanted to make sure the office is secured,” he said.
Reynolds called the handling of the election “incomprehensible,” and said he feels terrible for the voters and every person on the ballot.
From his perspective, there was an assortment of problems with the election. While usually six to eight deputies assist with an election, Reynolds said Martin only requested four.
“I thought that was a problem,” he said, adding deputies got voting equipment to the polls by 5 a.m.
In past elections, deputies deliver absentee ballots to the precincts by 8:30 a.m. so they can be counted later in the day but deputies couldn’t do that Tuesday because the ballots had not been separated, Reynolds said. Those ballots, once counted, are delivered to the administration building by poll inspectors after polling places close.
“We could’ve had 20 guys. It wouldn’t have made any difference if we didn’t have the ballots,” he said.
As the day progressed, Reynolds said, the absentee ballots still weren’t ready to be delivered to the precincts.
“There was a breakdown,” he said, adding there was no communication with the polling places that the absentee ballots weren’t ready. “They’re just waiting for us and we’re not coming.”
By around 10:30 p.m., Reynolds said he was telling poll workers to lock up their sites and come to the administration building because his deputies would not be there with the absentee ballots.
“It was just a combination of a lot of things and it got worse and worse,” he said.
Preliminary election totals will not include provisional ballots cast for the election. Those will be counted on Nov. 16 when the election board certifies the results, which, under state statute, must occur 10 days after the election.
“We have to get those sorted out as well. That’s part of the process,” Bengs said, adding he did not know how many provisional ballots there were.
Bengs previously said there are three sets of provisional ballots: one will be for voters who cast ballots the morning of Oct. 27 in Portage but whose ballots were not properly initialed by poll workers and could not come back in to vote anew; a second will be for any ballots set aside during normal polling place hours on Election Day; and the third will consist of ballots cast at those 12 precincts after regular voting hours ended at 6 p.m.
“If we get anything really close, we’ll determine if we’re in recount territory,” said Porter County Democratic Chair Jeffrey Chidester said, adding that will come after certification.
Outside the administration building Wednesday afternoon, more than 20 protestors waved signs that said, “Is this democracy?” and chanted, “Count our votes!” as passing drivers honked their horns.
The mix included a few Democrat candidates on the ballot, including Randy Wilkening, who’s running for coroner.
“It’s frustrating. I don’t know how else to put it into words,” he said “We’ve been doing elections for how long, and can’t get it done in a night. I just think it’s a shame.”
During a brief news conference that was part of the protest, Drew Wenger, chair of the Valparaiso Democratic Committee, said he was tired after working the election all day Tuesday and well into the night, and angry about rightful concerns about whether ballots would be counted.
“This whole debacle was on display for our entire state and entire nation,” he said. “Somebody needs to address what happened (Tuesday) night and is happening right now.”
Training to work the polls was rushed, he said, and many people who wanted to work the election were never contacted, adding he called 30 Republicans to be poll inspectors because of the need. Multiple people who requested absentee ballots also never received them.
He pointed to the clerk’s office as the source of the problems with the election.
“This is a joke. It is not a funny joke, and the responsibility falls solely on the county clerk,” he said. “Here’s my question. Where is Karen (Martin) right now? Where is she? Because we have questions for her.”
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