As is the case nationwide, early voting has proven quite popular in Lake County, Indiana. Chicago Public Radio points out that lines at all four of the county's voting sites have lasted up to four hours. To compensate, the county election board has approved a plan to extend the early voting period an extra three days -- through his weekend until noon on Monday. A no-brainer, right? Not for the board's two sitting Republicans, both of whom voted against the extension, proving yet again that the Lake County GOP is primarily concerned about obstructing ballot access in the Democratic-leaning region of the county.
If you'll remember, it was these two Republicans who opposed extending early voting beyond the clerk's office in Crown Point to three additional sites in highly-populated, Democratic-leaning cities on the northern edge of the county. Their intransigence prompted a drawn-out legal fight that pinballed between five different courts. Thankfully, Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias-Schneider decided that the "technicalities" cited by the GOP -- specifically, the lack of a unanimous vote by the board -- were not valid reasons to block voting access.
Early voting ultimately opened in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago on October 14 -- ten days after it began in Crown Point. One has to assume that the demand on these voting centers in the past two weeks would have been considerably lessened had the Republicans agreeed to open up the sites from the beginning.
The GOP's behavior throughout this process has been blatantly partisan, so it's not too surprising they would try to knock down an extension. But it's nonetheless disconcerting to see election board officials who apparently have no interest in ensuring that all the residents of their county can vote with convenience.
Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/31/2008 - 08:39
Early voting is allowed to go until Monday at noon -- the Republicans are just making themselves look like idiots on a regular basis now.
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