Voting Problems in Indiana

Marion County – The dreary weather does not appear to have hurt voter turnout in Indiana.

But News 8 has taken several calls from voters who have experienced some problems at the polls. Our voter hotline started ringing just after the polls opened at 6:00 am.

Voters have reported late poll openings, poll list and voter ID problems, voting machine problems including machines not turning on, paper jams in optical scan machines, not enough machines in Hendricks County, party propaganda and timing problems, where voters are being given a time limit of two minutes or so to vote in several counties, including Hamilton, Johnson and Hendricks Counties.

Time Limits
I-Team 8's Doug Garrison says Indiana law does indeed limit the amount of time voters can spend in the polls to two minutes. "It's not very often enforced but what usually happens is with the polls as busy as they are, they're trying to move people efficiently through and make sure everyone gets a chance to vote," said Garrison.

Carson Confusion
Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN07) had some confusion Tuesday morning over a fake ballot distributed by the Democratic Party. It was being handed out at her polling place illegally. According to the law, parties cannot distribute flyers or leaflets less than 50 feet from the polling place. Rep. Carson at first thought it was her ballot and tried to vote on it.

Pike Township Delays
In precinct 49 in Pike Township, poll workers were delayed when they had to wait for the keys to open up the new voting machines. Although workers arrived at 6:00 am, the polling place opening was delayed by half an hour.

James Johnson voted there in two previous elections, but when he turned up Tuesday morning, his name wasn't in the poll book. Johnson has a voter registration card showing the correct precinct.

"I came to vote this morning and I found out I'm not in the registry, so I'm still trying to vote," said Johnson.

He had to wait for precinct inspector Cynthia Haverstick to call the Marion County trouble-line. She was having trouble getting through. "It's ringing into the inspector hotline, then I've got to press 3 for voter registration problems, and when I press 3, it goes into disconnect mode." When she finally got through, she was put on hold for a while longer.

Phillip Jacks was another voter who encountered a problem. "I registered at the Department of Motor Vehicles and I never received the registration in the mail, but the receipt said I could bring that as proof," he said.

Haverstick eventually got her answer: the voters who were registered but whose names did not appear in the poll books had to fill out a certificate of error. Finally, after about an hour, Johnson and Jacks got to vote.

Live Voters Listed as Dead

There was another, more widespread problem I-Team 8 encountered: thousands of voters purged from the voter rolls because they were mistakenly listed as dead.

“The most unusual call we received today was from a couple in Delaware County who went to vote and discovered they were dead. They were not expecting that," said Shannon Cagle, WISH-TV.

That is a huge issue. I-Team 8 investigates why more than 4,500 names were purged from the voter rolls. Imagine walking in and being told you are on the dead list. Our investigation also shows you how often and why it happened across Indiana today.

T-Shirt Problems
Meanwhile, I-Team 8 has learned of voters who were turned away because of what they were wearing to vote. I-Team 8 is investigating one case in which 27-year-old Scott Long of Morgan County walked in with a T-shirt. A takeoff of "Got milk?" it said "Got Bush?" for George Bush. He was pulled out of line and told he couldn't vote.

I-Team 8’s Doug Garrison says that’s legal under Indiana state law. The Morgan County clerk told I-Team 8 that technically, anyone wearing a political button, T-shirt or other type of clothing promoting one party or another falls under the electioneering law. The law was really aimed to stop poll workers and others from badgering voters at the polling place. The ICLU says it’s a pretty strict interpretation of the law to not allow a voter wearing a political T-shirt to vote. In the end, Long took off or changed the T-shirt and voted.

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2512710&nav=0Ra7Sft3