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13 Poll Books Missing From County Hands
Situation is discovered when questions are raised about the party affiliation of candidate running for La Porte County Superior Court 2.

Laurie Wink
The News-Dispatch

LA PORTE - Thirteen is apparently an unlucky number for the La Porte County Voter Registration office.

That's the number of missing primary election poll books for 2007 that seem to have vanished from a storage area in the courthouse basement.

The records' absence came to light when a question was raised about Rich Stalbrink's Democratic candidacy for Superior Court 2.

It is alleged Stalbrink voted as a Republican in the 2007 primary, but without the poll books, the allegation cannot be confirmed. Stalbrink signed an affidavit saying he voted Democratic in the 2007 primary election.

Bette Conroy, La Porte County clerk, said the Election Board did not receive an official complaint about Stalbrink's party affiliation, making it a non-issue.

"There would have to be a written challenge from a voter before the March 13 deadline," Conroy said.

Vidya Kora, head of the county Democratic Party, said Stalbrink has a long history with the Democratic Party, both here and in Maryland, where he previously lived. Stalbrink said it was a surprise to him anyone would claim he was not previously a Democrat. He campaigned for Democrat Tom Alevizos for judge of the La Porte County Circuit Court in 2006. Alevizos subsequently appointed him as magistrate.

Stalbrink said when he found out his party affiliation was in question, he asked to have the voter records pulled, only to be told they were gone.

"It's very frustrating to me that 13 books were missing," Stalbrink said.

According to Georg-ianna Wolff, who works in the voter registration office, election records are kept in a separate room in the basement, but telephone and computer lines are located there so other people have access.

A document shredder is nearby, Wolff said, and the records could have temporarily been moved aside and placed by the shredder without being returned, resulting in them being mistakenly shredded.

She said the basement is also damp and the records - which have been kept in cardboard packing boxes - could have been damaged and inadvertently thrown out by maintenance workers.

"It's not like this is a deliberate thing," Wolff said. "We, as an office, did not move them out of there."

She said the basement is the only place to put the voluminous records, since the weight makes it impossible to store them in upper floors of the old courthouse structure.

To head off future problems with stored records, Wolff said, the department has purchased plastic storage boxes that can be locked.

"There's nothing illegal done on anybody's part," Wolff said.

Switching party affiliations is not unusual, according to Conroy. In this election, some might feel Democrats have a better chance of being elected.

Ed Janes, a Democratic candidate for judge in Superior Court 3, switched parties after running unsuccessfully as a Republican for county prosecutor in 1994 and judge in 1996.

With two weeks to the primary, Conroy thinks the voter turnout will be higher this year than the usual 27 to 30 percent, the presidential primary being the primary reason.



Contact Laurie Wink at lwink@thenewsdispatch.com.

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Missing Poll Books
Important Public Records Have Vanished

Editorial

Thirteen primary election poll books are missing from the La Porte County Courthouse and no one seems to know what happened to them. Worse, no one seems to be all that bothered that public records are missing.

The books are kept in the basement of the courthouse because there's not enough room in the election office upstairs..

The missing polling books came to light when the party affiliation of a candidate was questioned. To check party affiliation, election officials pulled the most recent primary election to see which ballot was requested. Except in this case, the polling book for that precinct - Center 2 - was missing. It turned out, 12 other polling books were missing as well.

Georgianna Wolff, who works in the Voter Registration office, said it is possible that because of cramped storage conditions in the basement, the polling books could have been moved to near the shredder that is kept in the same room, and that the books inadvertently could have been shredded.

"It's not like this is a deliberate thing," Wolff said.

We hope not, but, unfortunately, what happened to the poll books remains a mystery.

Let's hope this is not a repeat of the saga of the missing receipt books from County Assessor Carol McDaniel's office last year. Several turned up missing in an audit and some were later found in a trash can. There was no explanation for how the books got in the trash or where the missing receipt books could have gone.

At best, this underscores a serious lack of security and concern over public documents. At worst, it's something deliberate to cover up information that someone doesn't want the public to know.

Better arrangements need to be made to protect the integrity of public records and official documents. Each of the county's offices is charged with maintaining accurate records, but if the books containing that information keep disappearing, how can the accuracy of anything in their possession be trusted?

Our Opinion
The Issue: The 13 poll books contain voting records, which have a bearing on candidates and voters alike.

Our Opinion: The disappearance of these records is a mystery, but we hope they didn't get tossed in the trash like some receipt books in the assessor's office. County officials must do a better job safeguarding documents.