News From Terre Haute, Indiana

Local & Bistate

Discussion

Welcome to our online comments feature. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean. We reserve the right to remove comments that are obscene, racist or abusive and statements that are false or unverifiable as well as posts that are attacking other users. Repeat offenders will be blocked. You may flag objectionable comments for review by a moderator.
comments powered by Disqus
November 5, 2008

Vigo County sees more than 55 percent of voters cast ballots

By Howard Greninger

TERRE HAUTE — Absentee ballots contributed to a nearly 56 percent voter turnout in Vigo County, with 44,148 ballots cast.

That exceeds the 42,000 ballots cast in Vigo County in 1992 for Democrat Bill Clinton, winning his first election as president, and nearly matches the 44,973 ballots cast in 1984, the second term election of President Reagan. Nearly 17,000 of the votes cast in the general election were absentee ballots, largely cast in four satellite voting sites in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s election.

The final vote numbers are not official until certified by the Vigo County Election Board.

Vigo County had 79,413 registered voters.

Statewide, a record 4.5 million voters were registered. Almost 669,000 people voted early, either in person or by mail-in ballot, by Tuesday morning. During the last presidential election in 2004, about 260,000 residents voted early.

The election, while largely running smoothly, did have glitches.

Some Indiana State University students who tried to vote at the Deming Center at 615 Cherry St. in Terre Haute were turned away early Tuesday because they were not on any voter registration rolls, election officials said.

Only later — around noon — did election officials at Deming Center, which is precinct 5C, learn those students could cast provisional ballots.

“We had no idea where they were supposed to go,” said Kathryn Sparks, an inspector at the Deming Center polling place. Once polling officials learned provisional ballots could be cast, the polling station handed out so many they had to order additional provisional ballots, another poll worker said.

The Deming Center is near the ISU campus and volunteers for the Barack Obama campaign were bringing ISU students to the polling place to vote into the evening.

Jaron Brewer, 18, an ISU student from Terre Haute, cast a provisional ballot at the Deming Center at 6 p.m. as the polling place closed. He registered at ISU, he said, but was told by election officials he was supposed to vote in Fontanet in northern Vigo County.

Brewer said he had no idea why he was slated to vote in Fontanet. He lives on the ISU campus, he said. An Obama volunteer brought him to the polling place just before 6 p.m., he said.

Some voters had to wait up to 30 minutes to cast ballots during the busiest part of the day at the Deming Center, said Billie Johnston, a polling station judge. At times it was “very, very busy,” she said.

In addition, poll workers at Deming Center did not put absentee ballots through optical scan voting machines during low voting times prior to the closing of the polls. The precinct, 5C, was the very last precinct to be counted, at least four hours after 86 of 87 precincts had been counted.

Vigo County Clerk Patricia Mansard said nearly 600 absentee ballots had to be scanned prior to getting final vote totals.

Turnout was much higher than normal at several other north-end polling places.

“We’ve had a lot more young people,” said Janet Cutsinger, a polling place judge in precinct 6C at the American Legion Krietenstein Post at 2690 Fort Harrison Road.

Voter turnout was also high at the polling station in the former Deans Party Mania location at Plaza North.

“This is a real big one,” said Judy Travioli, an inspector at the polling station, which included precincts 6A and 6B. And many voters were first-time voters, added Nancy Moreland, a judge at the polling place.

There were 15 to 20 people in line at the Plaza North polling station at 6 a.m., Travioli said, adding that was far more than usual. “I think it’s been great,” she said. “We knew it would be.”

Davis Park Elementary School, 310 S. 18th St., is the polling place for precinct 3C, which has 608 registered voters. That site voted more than 200 voters early in the morning, yet by 3 p.m., there were no voters at the polls.

During that time, election workers put absentee ballots through voting machines.

“We didn’t get the absentee ballots until 2:15 p.m., but we had 138 absentee ballots and that is about 100 more than normal,” said Melanie Wright, an inspector at the polling site.

“It has been pretty smooth, better than I thought,” she said with about two and half hours left before the polls closed Tuesday.

Farther east in Terre Haute, at First Baptist Church at 4701 E. Poplar St., the polling site has three precincts — 9G,9F and 9C. Combined, there are 2,373 registered voters. The combined precincts had 743 absentee ballots.

“From 6 a.m. to about 6:15 a.m., we had about 20 people in line, but it was steady voting until about 2:30 or 3 p.m.,” said Elizabeth Scott, a sheriff at the polling place. The site had voted 400 people by 10 a.m., she said.

Jeffrey Harpole, a judge at the polling site, said about six absentee ballots were discovered from a different precinct, and would have to be counted at the county courthouse. “It has been mild in some ways, but it is very obvious that the absentee voting accounts for that,” he said.

Harpole said one concern was poll watchers, who asked to verify some names of people voting. “We can’t read off 700 names and are not required to do so, but we don’t want to impair anybody. They want to call people who haven’t voted and that is a noble thing to do, but they can’t practice the same day they perform,” he said.

Harpole served as a member of recount commission in 2007 in the mayoral election between Kevin Burke and Duke Bennett.

Jon Swain, spokesman for the Indiana Obama campaign, said it is normal for campaign workers with appropriate credentials to be at the polling sites monitoring to see if Obama supporters have voted.

If not, the campaign calls the voters to encourage them to vote.

“It’s kind of a normal process,” he said. The only thing different this year is that the workers are entering information electronically rather than using paper tear sheets.

“From our standpoint, folks there are doing the types of things campaigns do on Election Day. They are checking to see if voters [Democrats and Obama supporters] are getting to the polls,” Swain said.

Campaign workers are instructed not to interfere with the voting process, Swain said. “That wouldn’t serve our campaign well,” he said.

Terre Haute South Vigo High School, 3737 S. Seventh St., is the polling place for precincts C and F in Honey Creek Township.

Larry Agee, inspector at the South Vigo location, said the traffic at South had been “reasonably steady” all day. As of 3:15 p.m., there was one voter in a booth, and Agee said the longest line of the day was probably about a dozen voters, around 6 a.m.

“I was expecting double the normal,” said Agee, who is a longtime poll worker. The precinct had experienced no issues with any machines and there had been “very few” questions from voters about being in the correct precinct.

Voters appeared to be in good moods, generally, Agee said.

“I think the weather had a lot to do with that,” he said.

A little farther north at the Booker T. Washington Park Community Center, 1101 S. 13th St., which is the polling place for precincts 3G and 3H, serving Harrison Township, the waits also had been short for voters, according to Inspector Betty Williams.

By 4 p.m., Williams said the longest wait to vote had been “maybe a minute.”

There was a bit of a rush around 4:30 p.m., she said, but everything went quickly and smoothly.

“Seems like they already have their minds made up when they come in,” she said with a laugh.

Jonathan Moore, an election judge for the precinct, said at 5:30 p.m. that it looked like there was going to be a high turnout – 65 percent of registered voters for the precinct, Moore speculated. “It’s a huge improvement from the primary,” he added.

Moore attributed the high turnout to “people’s interest in this race for president, their interest in having a right to complain, and because they’ve been hearing about it for such a long time.”

Howard Greninger can be contacted at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Deb Kelly contributed to this report. Kelly can be contacted at (812) 231-4254 or at deb.kelly@tribstar.com. Arthur Foulkes contributed to this report and can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or at arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Local & Bistate
Latest News
Multimedia

Like us on Facebook!
Community Calendar
Loading…
Events by eviesays.com
TribStar.com Poll
Join the Conversation
Helium
Front page
AP Video
Pop Music Superstar Whitney Houston Dies at 48 Raw Video: Whitney Houston's Last Performance Police: Houston Found Dead in Her Hotel Room Fans 'Speechless' Over Houston's Death Reaction to Houston's Death at Clive Davis Party Recording Superstar Whitney Houston Dead at 48 Paul Suffers Narrow Loss to Romney in Maine Palin Brings Anti-Washington Message to CPAC Maine GOP Chairman Says Romney Wins Caucuses Snow Strands Italian Towns Raw Video: Deadly Blasts in Syria Obama Scraps Birth Control Mandate Latest Jason Wu Collection Shows Chinese Roots ShowBiz Minute: Madonna, Beresford-Redman, Pawsc US Airmen's Killer Sentenced to Life in Germany Raw Video: Rough Seas Stop Oil Removal Winter Slamming North Asia, Parts of Europe The Pits: Israelis Spit Olives for Glory Marines: No Punishment for Nazi-like Flag 5 Killed in Wrong-way Crash on I-10 in La.
NDN Video
Exclusive Video - Whitney's Bodybag Girl rescued after avalanche buries village in Kosovo Whitney's Final Days - EXCLUSIVE Raw Video: Aurora Borealis As Seen From Space First glimpse of Blue Ivy Carter Lusetich: AT&T Rd. 3 recap Peek inside Barbie's closet Romney Tops Santorum in CPAC Straw Poll Madonna's Daughter Shaves Head Angry Dad Shoots Teens Laptop Absolute Lin-sanity 5 Killed in Wrong-way Crash on I-10 in La. Test on Comforter in Powell Unit Shows Blood Hero Driver Saves Kids From Burning Bus Funeral to be held for Powell boys Sandusky on having to stay inside and people turning on him Uzbek Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Kill Obama Woolly Mammoth Caught on Camera? Did JLo 'Assault' Marc Anthony on Camera? Christie Brinkley's Runway Slip
Parade
Magazine
Click HERE to read all your Parade favorites including Hollywood Wire, Celebrity interviews and photo galleries, Food recipes and cooking tips, Games and lots more.
  • -

    March 12, 2010

activity
Real Estate News