Indiana

Sundae Schoon, the Republican director in Porter County’s voter registration office, started worrying about how the county’s midterm general election was being handled in late September. “There was such an influx of (requests for) absentee ballots coming in,” she said, adding there were only two people in Clerk Karen Martin’s office to handle them. By the Saturday before the Nov. 6 election, her concerns grew deeper, because the suitcases for precinct inspectors weren’t ready to be picked up. Many inspectors pick up the supplies that day if they can’t get them the day before the election. She began to wonder. “If that’s not ready, what else isn’t?” she said, adding she called David Bengs, president of the election board, about the suitcases and he directed her to do whatever needed to be done to get them ready.

In light of a lengthy list of election woes for Porter County’s midterm election, including a preliminary tally of results that wasn’t complete until Friday, the Porter County Board of Commissioners and two members of the County Council are asking for the immediate resignation of Clerk Karen Martin. Commissioners made their request after election board officials announced the results were online during a sometimes heated news conference. “Under normal circumstances, the board of commissioners would have never suggested anything like that. I think Karen’s conduct after Tuesday night is what convinced us that something had to be done,” said Commissioner Jim Biggs, R-North. “Being MIA at a time when her leadership was at its highest need – short of someone taking my legs from me, I would have been there. I would have had to be there. It was unfortunate but it needed to be said.”