By VICKI URBANIK

and KEVIN NEVERS

With the chance to influence a presidential primary for the first time in 40 years, voters in Tuesday’s primary overwhelmingly picked Democrat ballots, prompting a county judge to keep the polls open one hour later to accommodate precincts that ran out of Democrat ballots.

Voter turnout in Porter County ended up at 41 percent, lower than some had projected but still considered high for a primary election. But what did come as a surprise to many was that in most precincts, voters who requested a Democrat ballot exceeded 80 percent of all voters.

In Westchester 4, 82 percent picked Democrat ballots. In W13, it was 85 percent, and in W17, it was even higher, 89 percent. Even in Westchester 2, which tends to be a Republican stronghold, more voters went for the Democrat ballots -- 53 percent.

Elsewhere in Porter County, the interest in the Democrat primary was just as intense. A whopping 91 percent went Democrat in Portage 2. In Center 35, it was 84 percent. In Washington 2, it was 85 percent.

Porter Superior Court Judge Julia Jent signed the order to keep the polls open for an extra hour at about 5:45 p.m., after being presented with an affadavit from the County Election Board requesting the move.

Clay Patton, attorney for the county election board, said the number of Democrat ballot requests far exceeded expectations. The county was able to print out additional ballots on demand, but still couldn’t keep up with the levels they were experiencing.

In response to some criticism voiced Tuesday night that they could have been more prepared, Democrat County Clerk Pam Fish said the county’s election supplier required that the county place its ballot order by March 1. She said the decision on how many ballots to order for each party was based in part on past elections and noted that it would have been too costly to ensure enough ballots for all 107,275 registered voters in the county.

At the time that the county had to place its order, Fish said the county didn’t know the Obama-Clinton match up would be as intense as it became, especially since there were at least one other viable Republican presidential candidate still in the running at the time.

Patton said the fact that more than 80 percent of the voters pulled Democrat ballots was “astronomical.”

“There’s a huge crossover,” he said, citing how Democrats, as well as Republicans and Independents, were voting Democrat, despite the fact that Republicans had more contested battles in county races.

Patton said that one reason why the county ran out of Democrat ballots was because many Republicans were clearly voting in the Democrat race. Indeed, County Republican Party Chair Chuck Williams said party data suggested that 22 percent of people who previously voted Republican voted Democrat on Tuesday.

Clay estimated that 10 of Porter County’s 124 precincts actually ran completely out of ballots at some point in the day, although Fish deputized Porter County Sheriff’s Police officers to transport extra ones on demand. “God bless the Porter County Sheriff’s Police because they assisted us in delivering them,” she said. “They were awesome.”

Part of the problem appears to have been an inability of poll workers simply to get through to Voter Registration on the telephone to request additional ballots. Cell phones were made available to precincts without ready access to a land line, but those cells were useless until a line at the bombarded Voter Registration opened up.

Fish noted that, beginning at 5 a.m. on Tuesday and lasting well into the evening, until as late as 9 p.m., the eight land lines at Voter Registration “were ringing off the hook” and constantly busy. Not only poll workers but voters themselves “were vying for phone lines,” she said, as voters sought information on registration and precincts.

At Westchester 3 Democratic Inspector Pat Fry knew early in the afternoon that her polling place would run out of ballots sooner or later. She made her first call to Voter Registration at 1 p.m. and made her request for additional ballots. When none was forthcoming, Fry told the Chesterton Tribune, she made another call at 2:30 p.m. and was told that ballots were on their way. Then, finally, at 4:10 p.m. Westchester 3 simply ran out. A fresh supply arrived at 5 p.m.

Fry said that, for each call, she had to dial Voter Registration as many as 30 times before she actually got an open line.

Voters wishing to pull Democratic ballots at Westchester 3 after 4:10 p.m. were given three choices: to drive to Valparaiso and cast a ballot at Voter Registration; to wait for additional ballots to arrive, expected “any minute”; or to leave the polling place and return later to vote.

Despite the balloting problems, in some respects, Tuesday’s primary election went smoother than in some in the past.

The first results, from precincts Westchester 2 and Center 35, were posted about 20 minutes after the polls closed. Most of the results were in well before 10 p.m., but two precincts in particular -- Westchester 10 and Portage 24 --- delayed the final tabulation, since poll workers did not turn in the discs that recorded the votes. Election officials did have the paper ballots as a back-up measure, but sheriff’s deputies were sent to retrieve the discs from the two precincts. The final results were then posted at about 10:45 p.m.

In a few previous elections, vote results were delayed because of inconsistencies between the numbers of ballots cast with the numbers shown on poll books. For the most part, that problem didn’t happen on Tuesday.

“Overall, we’re very, very happy. They (election workers) did an awesome job,” Fish said.

Posted 5/7/2008