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Conspiracy buffs doubt explanations of why Indiana's vote count was delayed

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By Bill Dolan/TIMES OF NORTHWEST INDIANA | Wednesday, May 7, 2008 8:09 PM CDT | () comments

CROWN POINT — An overwhelming voter turnout, at least one case of votes that were briefly missing and a conscious decision to delay announcing the results Tuesday night left voters wondering who won Indiana’s primary.

National pundits publicly accused Lake County election officials of manipulating the release of vote totals, and some local officials speculated the canvas was being stage managed to build suspense and focus the country’s attention on Lake County.

A day after Clinton eked out a narrow victory in the primary, no one raised allegations of illegal activity. But some say old-school politics were certainly at play in the state’s second-largest county, at the southern tip of Lake Michigan.

“They wanted to put Barack Obama over the top with Lake County’s vote and games were being played like in the 1950s,” said Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, who endorsed Hillary Clinton. “It went bad when a lot of people were watching.”

Election officials posted what appeared to be final, unofficial totals about 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“We’re real tired,” Lake County election board employee Naomi Roby said early Wednesday. She said it isn’t unusual for election results here to come in later than other counties.

Elections Board Director Sally LaSota denied Tuesday night the county was holding back results to help either Obama or Clinton.

Election officials promised before the election their purchase of 525 Infinity state-of-the-art electronic voting machines, at a cost of $1.4 million, would deliver results much faster.

However, the primary attracted record voter turnout across the state. Many counties ran short of Democratic ballots and had to print extras, which had to be counted by hand.

LaSota said she didn’t anticipate a record 11,000 absentee ballots cast in the final days before Tuesday, many of which were paper ballots that had to be meticulously counted by hand.

A total of 144,000 votes were cast, almost a 51 percent turnout.

LaSota said she refused to release final results until all the absentee ballots were counted, despite pressure by the national media.

“They aren’t telling us what to do,” she said.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay, whose position as county Democratic county chairman gives him considerable influence over the vote canvas, said late Tuesday, “There isn’t any hanky panky.”

Lake County Surveyor George Van Til, who secured the Democratic nod for another run in the fall, criticized the county’s handling of the election .

“I didn’t know my numbers until I woke up this morning,” he said. “They’ve got some real winners there.”

“Lake County didn’t win last night,” he said. “We look stupid.”

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)