Election integrity concerns continue in St. Joseph County

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) - The election is over but concerns over election integrity in St. Joseph County continue.

The election board on Friday scheduled a full-blown hearing on the latest allegations for Dec. 22 and agreed to subpoena at least five witnesses.

Some called it a witch hunt, others said laws may have been broken.

The latest controversy is separate from a previous election board probe into keys to the absentee ballot storage room.

The latest allegations have to do with a woman whose voter registration was cancelled, and how she managed to get it reinstated at the last minute.

“My understanding of state law is that a person cannot register to vote within 30 days of an election, and so the day before the election, voter registration gets a call that was transferred up from the auditor’s office from a woman wanting to register,” said St. Joseph County Republican Election Board member Thomas Dixon. “Asked for her political affiliation and then said, ‘I was told to talk to the Democrat.’ Tricia transferred her to Amanda and Amanda activated her voter registration and she voted that day.”

“In this situation, the voter had inquired, came into vote early the day before the election, and was wondering why she was shown as cancelled,” explained Democratic election board member Charles Leone. “And one of the voter registration individuals could not determine why she was cancelled, and she switched to an active status, and I think that is what is being challenged is whether that process was done correctly.”

Attorney James Groves said he represents the voter registration worker involved: “We want the ability to explain this little thing that happened here to allow a lady to vote that has now metastasized into what appears to be a federal issue. And by the way, at this point in time I think this lady has, the voter was disenfranchised and possible in violation of federal law because this was a federal election.”

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