Well, almost.
The AP is )( this close to openly questioning if the vote in Indiana was tainted… not by Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, but by Obama supporters.
GARY, Ind. (AP) — [1]It was midnight and the nation was still awaiting results from the Indiana primary, one of the biggest remaining prizes of the epic Democratic presidential battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
But as the clock ticked, the questions and accusations grew louder: What was wrong in Lake County? Was this more politics as usual in a county often suspected of harboring Chicago-style corruption?
A day after Clinton eked out a narrow victory in the primary, no one raised allegations of illegal activity. But some say old-school politics were certainly at play in the state’s second-largest county, at the southern tip of Lake Michigan.
“They wanted to put Barack Obama over the top with Lake County’s vote and games were being played like in the 1950s,” said Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, who endorsed Clinton. “It went bad when a lot of people were watching.”
The late returns came in a primary that attracted record voter turnout across the state. Many counties ran short of Democratic ballots and had to print extras, which had to be counted by hand. In Lake County alone, voters cast 11,500 early ballots — about three times the number cast in the 2004 primary.
Moreover, the absenee ballots were well over the norm… and when broken down, the absentees almost to a man went for Obama. PLUS, several of the voting machines went flooey in some manner, fouling their calculated totals… a near impossibility, unless someone’s been software tampering, as I understand the matter. No word on how the vote totals from those machines broke down. Also no word on who made the machines, but since there’s a paper trail availble in the Diebold machines, one assumes that Lake county would want nothing to do with them. (Remember, this is the same group of bandits who objected to the photo ID being required)
And finally, the Democrat who runs the Lake County elections board is an Obama supporter. AND, the lake county electons board itself is stuffed with Democrat party hacks, from what I’m hearing. Shushannah Walshe at Fox: [2]
Rokita mentioned Lake County’s less than stellar reputation when it comes to their election board. He said he usually sends teams of his deputies up to Lake County to monitor their elections and he is hoping for more transparency in the future. However, county election boards in Indiana are autonomous and state government can merely suggest changes and cannot regulate their behavior as long as it is lawful. Rokita said he is not going to investigate and does not suspect any illegal activity, but that he will continue to monitor the situation. He added that he wouldn’t put political mischief past the board:
“This is a board made up of politicians and political wannabes and I don’t put politics past delaying the vote or anything like that, but I can’t find anything they did that is contrary to Indiana law at this point.”
Well, “against the law” is an interesting turn of a phrase, given that we’re dealing with primaries, which is a vast different situation, than is a general election. Now, balance all that against the idea that we’ve got a couple of Chicago natives… Obama and Clinton.. running against each other.
Make your own choices, here, but personally, I smell a fish.