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Saturday, March 20, 2010
Ind. Courts - "Porter county judge orders trustee candidate removed from ballot"
Julie Hum reports today in the Gery Post-Tribune:
VALPARAISO -- Porter County Judge Mary Harper ruled that county election officials must remove a Union Township trustee candidate's name from May's primary election ballot.Mike Herzog of Hobart did not sign the declaration of candidacy form in front of a notary as statute requires and must be disqualified, she said at the end of Friday's hearing that lasted nearly three hours.
"The bottom line is the good people of Union Township need to be able to trust their trustee," Harper said.
County election workers will have to cross off Herzog's name from the 5,800 Union Township Republican ballots with black markers.
Anthony Pampalone, a Republican candidate for Union Township trustee, brought the challenge earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Harper issued a temporary injunction to halt printing of those absentee ballots after Pampalone of Valparaiso made the request in his legal challenge against Herzog's candidacy.
According to Pampalone's suit, during the Feb. 26 hearing before the election board, Herzog admitted that he had not signed his papers in front of a notary as required. Nor was he present when the notary signed and notarized the papers.
The board voted 2-1 to keep Herzog on the ballot, concluding there was substantial compliance with statute.
Harper overruled that decision Friday afternoon.
"I think the Legislature wanted strict compliance," she said.
She added that her ruling does not imply there was any fraud or criminal intent on Herzog's part. * * *
Harper lifted the temporary injunction and allowed the election board to proceed with the printing of the Union Township Republican ballots that were being held up due to the legal dispute.
County election officials were facing a deadline to get those ballots printed today and ready for mailing by March 25 to overseas and military absentee voters.
The process of printing 103,000 ballots -- one for each registered voter in the county, had already begun.
County Clerk Pamela Fish testified Friday that any further delay could cost the county "upwards of $50,000."
The company that services the electronic voting machines for the county had already coded, or programmed, all the ballot information, Fish said.
The county could face additional costs if printing is delayed or anything is "extracted" from the coding, Fish said.
A company representative could not guarantee that all ballots would be coded correctly, Fish said.
"Because of coding and the way the system is organized and coded together," any new change could force the county to print 103,000 ballots again, Fish said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 20, 2010 10:15 AM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions