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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Ind. Decisions - More on: Decision in the Lake County early voting case
Updating the ILB entry from early this afternoon, Bill Dolan of the NWI Times now has a report on the ruling that beings:
HAMMOND | Early voting satellite centers in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago will remain open following a Wednesday ruling in Lake Superior Court.In her ruling, Judge Diane Kavadias-Schneider struck down Republican efforts to have the satellite voting locations deemed illegal and shut down.
The judge granted a petition by Democrats and the United Steelworkers union to keep the sites open on grounds the centers provide better access to early voting to minority communities, which don't have the time or transportation to reach the early voting center in Crown Point.
"If early voting was not offered in the cities of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, the voters in those communities would be the only voters in Indiana who would not by able to vote at a courthouse located in their city of residence," she states in her ruling, which was handed down just before noon.
She denied a petition by the Lake County Republican party to close voting in those Democratic strongholds because of the potential for vote fraud.
Kavadias-Schneider stated in her ruling, "Regrettably, Lake County has had a history of public corruption and voter fraud," but not enough to warrant disenfranchising voters in the county's three biggest cities.
She ruled that in-person voting is protected by "the strictest voting requirement in all 50 states."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 22, 2008 03:15 PM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions