Indiana update #2: challenges, intimidation in Gary and Indianapolis
By Josh Zaharoff
Posted on Tue Nov 04, 2008 at 07:17:27 PM EST
After a day that featured few voter challenges at the polls -- a welcome break from 2004 -- we've just heard about intimidation in Lake County, home to Gary, Indiana, from one of our staff who is on the ground as a poll monitor.
Voters in Gary showed up with valid registration cards but were inexplicably left off the voting rolls. At first they were turned away. Then, when the county elections office decided to start letting people vote but to track them in a log to confirm their voting eligibility, two Republican attorneys who had been at multiple polling sites over the course of the day began challenging every one of these voters.
The challenges forced each voter to vote a provisional ballot, which means it won't be counted unless the voter returns within ten days to confirm his/her eligibility. This despite the voters furnishing a valid registration form -- further evidence that the Indiana ID requirements are far too stringent and restrictive (see our recent reports for more), that voter challenges need to be restricted to prevent blanket challenges designed to suppress the vote, and also apparently that Indiana needs to dedicate more resources to handling a rush of new voters and making sure all registered voters onto the voting rolls properly.
The good news: our poll monitor caught several voters who were about to leave without voting at all, had them call the Election Protection hotline at 866-OURVOTE, who then coached them to go back and vote a provisional ballot so they have a chance for their vote to count. In some cases a legal team member from Election Protection spoke directly to an election worker and made sure provisional ballots were offered to these voters.
More good news: a similar problem in Indianapolis earlier today was resolved when two election officials were removed for improper voter challenges:
Two Republican elections workers have been removed from an Indianapolis area polling site for improperly challenging voters on the basis of their party affiliation.
Voters in the battleground state can be challenged on the validity of their address, age or lack of ID, but not based on their party affiliation. The two poll workers -- a Republican vote challenger and a clerk -- forced at least three voters to file provisional ballots, said Angie Nussmeyer, spokeswoman for the Marion County Election Board.
The county's bipartisan election board voted unanimously to remove the two.
We're hearing about further challenges around Lake County as polls close, but some quick organizing may have saved many votes in Lake County this evening. We probably will not know the final outcome until much later.
Tags: voter intimidation, voter challenges, election protection, election 08, voting, election day, indiana, in the states (all tags)
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