Michelle Senderhauf, publishing on Medium, has a ground level account of what looks to be a fiasco in the administration of the Porter County elections. From her end, it sounds like a failure in training, preparation, and staffing all around. The reporting from the NWITimes indicates that elections had previously been administered by the Porter County Voter Registration Office. That authority was transferred to the Clerk’s office earlier this year on a 2-1 vote by the County election board. The Clerk is on that board & voted in favor of transferring authority to her office, saying her office could handle the responsibilities. When the election is administered by the registration office, the county clerk, voter registration office, county election board and the local Republican and Democratic Party chairs are involved in the process. The rationale seems to be that putting it all in the hands of the Clerk would streamline things.

According to Senderhauf’s account, training of poll workers took place late or not at all. The proper number of precinct inspectors, judges, and clerks were not present. The ballots were not delivered on time. One precinct was being directed to an improper voting location which did not have the proper ballots for those voters. Absentee ballots were not delivered to the correct locations for counting.

Per the newspaper reports, at about 1:05 a.m. on Wednesday after election day, “there were women sitting on the floor of the rotunda counting absentee and early voting ballots.” Those ballots should have been delivered to the Porter County Administration Center. “The Election Day problems resulted in emergency court hearings and judges’ orders to ensure access to voting and secure the handling of ballots.”

The FBI has been called in by the Porter County Board of Commissioners to investigate. There have been calls for the Clerk, at whom most fingers are pointing, to resign. She apparently lost her bid to become County Auditor.

There are a lot of moving parts in the election process. There are cynical reasons for partisans to blow any hiccup out of proportion, and there is a tendency by well-meaning citizens to be skittish about a process they don’t fully understand and don’t fully trust. (And, to be fair, some of that distrust has been earned — our country has a rich tradition of election fraud). So, I tend to shrug off a lot of the criticism of election day problems. But the failures here sound fairly remarkable and preventable.

It’s no secret that I think Trump is horrible for America. But, I’m not a knee-jerk partisan bomb thrower. I vote for a lot of Republicans though, it must be said, I probably haven’t voted for a Republican to federal office in a general election since Sen. Lugar in 2006. The rise of Newt Gingrich and the impeachment of Clinton kind of soured me on federal Republicans. But in state and particularly local elections, I have historically kind of bounced around. I say this as a probably ineffective way to add credibility to my recommendation that Indiana voters vote for Joe Donnelly. I’m not making this recommendation out of mere tribalism.

I’m prompted to make this post by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette’s endorsement of Joe Donnelly. The Journal Gazette leans left, so it’s probably no surprise that they endorse Joe. But, their main points, particularly the one on health care, remain valid. Donnelly cast one of the crucial votes against repeal of the ACA. Braun supports AG Hill’s lawsuit seeking to have the courts invalidate ACA protections on pre-existing conditions. (Per the FWJG editorial, “Braun still advocates repeal and has supported a lawsuit filed by Indiana’s Curtis Hill and other Republican attorneys general aimed at ending guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.”) The ACA isn’t great, but we saw that after years and years and years of railing against it, Congressional Republicans could only come up with something that was likely to cost more and cover less. (Per the CBO, AHCA would “result in 24 million Americans losing their health insurance while raising premiums for those covered on the individual market.”)

Braun’s party line orthodoxy on health care goes to the larger point that I made on Twitter a few weeks ago shortly after the Donnelly/Braun debate: “I didn’t watch the Senate debate. I do know that Trump is an incessant liar with bad ideas. Joe Donnelly will vote against him sometimes & Mike Braun never will. No need to get into the weeds on this one.” It’s a frequent complaint among my Democratic friends that Sen. Donnelly votes with Trump and against the Democratic party line way too often. (See, e.g., his vote for Gorsuch.) They are either abandoning him or their support is very, very tepid. I get it, but the reality is that we have a two party system, and Indiana is culturally conservative. The choices are between an inconsistent Democrat and a Republican who will always enable Trump. Personally, I tend to think Donnelly is a good guy who more or less tries to do the right thing while remaining politically viable in Indiana. Middle class and working class people stand a better chance under policies he favors than those favored by Braun. And, in any event, for me Braun’s lockstep support of Trump is simply disqualifying.

Update: The South Bend Tribune endorses Donnelly similar reasons.

The AP (via the IBJ) is reporting that the Indiana Chamber of Commerce will remain neutral on the Donnelly/Braun race for Senate. In the past 10 years since the Chamber has been endorsing candidates, they’ve supported the Republican in each race. (Which, I guess means Young in 2016, Mourdock in 2012, and Coats in 2010.) They don’t like Donnelly because he’s a Democrat and, specifically the article speculates, because he voted against the budget-busting tax cut that primarily benefits the wealthiest Americans (I paraphrase).  The Chamber’s beef with Braun, the article speculates, is his support of Trump’s tariffs (taxes on imported goods.) Braun’s support for these taxes is contrary to the Chamber’s support of free trade and antipathy toward taxes.