Continuing the saga of early voting in Lake County, the Indiana Supreme Court has denied the Republicans' request for an expedited appeal of the trial court's order allowing early voting to continue in the heavily Democratic Lake County cities of Hammond, East Chicago, and Gary.
For an extended background of this issue, see my earlier diary. But, the gist is that Lake County, Indiana is a heavily Democratic county of the state. It's the second most populous county in Indiana and turnout there will have a lot to say about whether Obama or McCain wins Indiana's 11 electoral votes.
The gist of the story is that early voting was allowed under Indiana law by default in the county seat of Crown Point, Indiana. This is a more Republican area of the county. It is difficult for voters without good transportation to get from the cities of Hammond, East Chicago, and Gary to Crown Point. So, on a 3-2 party line vote, Democrats in favor, Republicans against, the county election board voted to open early voting centers in these cities. The legal question became whether these vote centers were "satellite" voting centers or merely additional voting centers in the branch offices of the Lake County clerk of courts. Due to a peculiarity of Indiana law, the former required a unanimous vote of the election board and the latter required only a majority vote.
The vote to open voting at these locations triggered a fast-paced legal odyssey that went from the county superior court to the federal district court to the county circuit court to the Indiana Supreme Court back to the superior court but with a different judge and, today, back to the Indiana Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, the trial court decided that the early voting centers should remain open. She concluded that there was an ambiguity in the statute about whether these voting centers were properly regarded as "satellite" voting centers or (for lack of a better word) "regular" voting centers in the branch offices of the clerk of courts. She then decided that the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of the (purported, anyway) Indiana policy of encouraging citizens to vote.
The Republicans then asked the Indiana Supreme Court to conduct an expedited review of the case. By a vote of 3-2, the Supreme Court declined. An appeal, if any, will have to be taken to the Indiana Court of Appeals. The speculation is that, the Supreme Court having taken a pass, the Indiana Court of Appeals won't review the case on an expedited basis and, therefore, the early voting sites will remain open until the election. That's just speculation, however.