Porter County’s 2018 Election Fiasco
A chaotic day of missing ballots, locked polling places, and rampant misinformation
You may have noticed that Porter County, Indiana still had 0 percent reporting for the 2018 election as of Friday morning. Porter is that gray county in the upper left corner of the map below. I was a poll worker there this past Tuesday.
Buckle up because nothing in this story goes according to plan.
2018 was my first year as a poll worker. My husband signed up with me. I was a poll clerk, and my husband was an election judge (responsible for checking IDs at the door, helping with the scanners, and delivering ballots to the courthouse at the end of the day). We were excited to do our part to ensure every eligible voter in our county was allowed to cast a ballot. Yay, democracy!
Our excitement started to wane when weren’t trained. We emailed multiple times to ask about training, and we were repeatedly told we would be trained soon. Finally, on October 26, after we’d practically begged over email to be trained, the county set up classes. However, they made it very difficult for poll workers to attend…
