Special School Board Election Ordered

A special election is ordered in a contested Warsaw school board race.

Circuit Court Judge Rex Reed issued his decision this morning, ordering the special election requested by candidate Stewart Watkins for the Warsaw school board District 4 seat. Watkins lost the election to Charles Sauders by five votes.

By Indiana law, the special election will be held on the ninth Tuesday following the order. The ninth Tuesday would be Feb. 8.

The order follows Tuesday's hearing on the lawsuit filed by Watkins after the Nov. 2 election.

Watkins asked for the special election because one of four voting booths for Precinct 1, Ward 2, did not contain the page with the school board candidates. By the time the error was discovered, 63 people had already voted in that precinct.

Watkins filed suit Nov. 8, saying that because of the error, it was impossible to determine the actual vote count.

His attorney, Steve Harris, said at Tuesday's hearing that Indiana law states that if there is an error in the printing or distribution of ballots, making it impossible to determine the number of votes for a candidate, a special election in the affected precinct is called for.

Reed's order agreed, saying "the total votes cast in the Precinct during such period of time were sufficient in number to make it impossible to determine which candidate received the highest number of votes for the School Board Election."

Sauders, represented by Mike Armey, said he supported a recount, but not a special election.

"The only way it could be fair would be to duplicate the process," Sauders said. "Those people who voted should be the only people allowed to vote again."

Because voters sign in before they vote, he said, there will be a record of who actually voted at that polling place.

Watkins' wife, Sarah, discovered the error Nov. 2 when she wanted to vote for her husband and could not find the appropriate page in the booklet at her voting booth. She said Tuesday she was allowed to move to another booth and complete her vote, but she was the 64th voter in that polling place and did not know how many voters had preceded her in that booth.

Two poll workers, Rodney and Geneva West, testified that the error in the ballot had occurred and that the voting booth that contained the wrong ballot was shut down as soon as the error was discovered.

"Can you determine what voters voted on any particular machine?" Harris asked.

"No," said Rodney West.

Kosciusko County Clerk Sharon Christner said the ballots are put into the voting machines by workers in her office at the Justice Building, and the machines are picked up by the poll workers. The poll workers, she said, are supposed to test each ballot before the polls open.

Christner said on Election Day, she was called around 6 a.m. and told that a ballot in Precinct 2, Ward 2 had a page with school board candidates that did not apply to that ward. At about 8:30 a.m., she received a call from Precinct 1, Ward 2 that a page was missing. She went to Precinct 2 and got the page, she said, then went to Precinct 1 and "inserted the page in the machine they had closed."

Christner had brought with her the sealed case containing the actual ballots, which Armey had subpoenaed, and Armey asked Reed to break the seal on the case. However, Phil Harris, attorney for Watkins, objected on the basis that it was irrelevant.

"This is not a recount, this is only the issue of whether there was a mistake in the distribution of ballots and did this make it possible to determine who had the greatest number of votes," Harris said.

Reed upheld Harris' objection and the case remained sealed.

In final arguments, Harris said both sides agree that a mistake was made and according to Indiana law, if a mistake was made and that mistake makes it impossible to determine how the election would have come out if the ballot had been there, a special election is necessary.

Armey said that Sauders won the election by five votes, and Watkins "didn't present any evidence that anybody voted on that machine before Mr. Watkins' wife did."

Watkins also, Armey said, overlooked the fact that many voters chose not to vote for school board in that district.

The burden of proof was on Watkins, Armey said.

"They may have proved there was a mistake, but they didn't prove it makes it impossible to determine who won the election," he said. "My client won. They're unhappy about it."

The special election will take place only in Precinct 1, Ward 2, where the error occurred.