The validity of election results rests on transparency and transparency requires that results be released as soon as they are known. In most of the world, election results are known within a couple of hours of the polls closing. In Indiana tonight, there was a clear break-down of the process. Delays in the release of the results can be the Achilles Heel of any election, leading to allegations of voter fraud and manipulation. Robert Mugagbe played the delay game to his advantage in Zimbabwe. But in the United States delays in the release of results are rare and unacceptable. There are only three reasons that delays can occur: weather related, turnout related (polls stay open later by court order) and computer/technical glitches.
In four counties tonight in Indiana there were delays and only one of them is fully explicable. In Union County on the Ohio border a technical glitch with computer tallying delayed the results until well after midnight. In Union County being a small rural county, there were few voters, a total of 1,186. And the cause of the delay was reported. That covers Union County.
Two other counties in northwestern Indiana, Porter and LaPorte, began reporting their results but suddenly and I yet to hear a reason why mid-count their results stopped rolling in. Combined these two counties had some 61,000 voters. I am guessing that there were glitches but I have no confirmation of this as yet. Still this doesn’t strike me as suspect since over half the tallies had been reported on time.
But it is in Lake County where serious problems occurred and where the media paid attention because the breach was egregious. It took nearly six hours before the results were fully known. Weather was not an issue. Nor was turnout even though it was high the polls did not stay open past their appointed hour. In fact, the suburban part of Lake County noted that they had submitted their result to county officials by 7:30PM Eastern Time. And yet the results were not released. Why? The Mayor of Gary suggests it was because “they were being extra careful.” Careful with what? A computer? Or filling out paper ballots? For the record, Lake County uses a combination of the failed, unverifiable MicroVote Infinity DREs and paper-based MV-464’s voting machines, according to Verified Voting’s database of voting systems. More bizarre was that the absentee ballots had not been counted. Normally, they have been counted by the time the polls close. Why weren’t they counted? Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary danced around the issue and fail to offer a cogent explanation for the delay.
I did not watch the results come in over the networks. Inside I followed the results over the Internet getting feeds from various news services. By 9:20 PM Eastern Time I noted on the Confluence that results seemed “sluggish” and that I found that “odd.”
Charles Lemos, on May 6th, 2008 at 9:20 pm Said:
Sluggish Returns: Results are really stalled tonight, coming in very slowly despite the relatively early close of the polls. Only 69% of Indiana’s precincts have reported, and Mrs. Clinton is ahead 54 to 46. Most of Indianapolis and all of Gary are still out. Very odd.
In electoral monitoring terms neither sluggish nor odd are good things, not necessarily a bad thing only that there might be a glitch. But this wasn’t a glitch apart from Union County. Buttons are pushed and the results are tabulated. Also odd is how in the above video in the middle of the discussion between the two mayors, the results suddenly came in. Did Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary suddenly realize he needed to push the button? Something is not quite right and it needs to be explored further. There was no transparency in Lake County, Indiana and officials there need to be held accountable. I’d start by asking the Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary, Indiana a few questions. And it is the Department of Justice that should be asking those questions because the Mayor Tom McDermott of Hammond is correct, there is the appearance of impropriety.
Over on CorrenteWire, Lambert has an excellent synopsis as to how the evening unfolded or perhaps didn’t unfold. Also worth a look this local blog from Hammond, Indiana. And here’s the Washington Post on the Mayor of Gary, Rudy Clay.
UPDATE
The delays in Porter and LaPorte Counties are fully explicable as I had guessed due to a technical glitch, a shortage of ballots as this story from the North Western Indiana Times reports.
UPDATE
This is not the first time that Lake County, Indiana has encountered voting irregularities. This is from a local Indiana blog Advance Indiana.