I picked up an interesting tidbit this evening. Warren Township Schools are sitting on another potential sexual time bomb involving the reported rape of a student by a school football player. If it turns out to be true this school district is going to have a major disaster on its hands. Stay tuned.

I finally got my call returned Monday from the Indianapolis branch of the NAACP. I called them several times last week to inquire if they were going to get involved in the Marion County disaster known as the May 8 primary where polls opened late and some didn’t open at all disenfranchising at least 3100 voters.

I spoke briefly with Cornell Burris, the President of the local chapter. He told me the NAACP had no immediate plans to get involved in the matter. I asked him why. He said it was in part because the organization had been burned on Voter ID. Alluding to the fact they had supported a lawsuit against the State of Indiana that never produced a victim.

I asked Burris if he thought this case was different because you could identify the 3100 registered voters in the precincts that never opened and would that be enough for the NAACP to get involved. He repeated his answer that the NAACP doesn’t plan to get involved and go look for disenfranchised voters.

He did say that the organization might get involved if someone where to bring a complaint and they were given approval to pursue litigation from their parent organization. But for now, if you are a disenfranchised voter and looking for help from the NAACP, you’ll have to find them first, because they’re not looking for you.

Chuck Schalliol, State Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to announce this afternoon that he’s stepping down as the head of OMB. More details to follow later today.

I’m back from vacation well-rested and ready to go. What’s interesting though is I’m not the only one who’s been on vacation. The NAACP is also on vacation. Along with the ACLU, Concerned Clergy and Ministerial Alliance. None of these groups and come up and protested last week’s disenfranchisement of more than 3100 voters in Marion County. I left several messages with some of these groups and no one got back to me. If I were them, I would have been outraged at the fact that so many people didn’t the chance to vote. It would have been one thing had these voters had the doors slammed in their faces, but in this case they were neveer opened. It’s a shame these groups will complain about Voter ID, where they could not show one person who was disenfranchised, but here we have at least 3100 people and not a word.

Contrary to popular belief, I really do hate being right all the time because when I am it’s over things that are never good. And Marion County Clerk Beth White has proved my point. She admitted in today’s Indianapolis Star that she NEVER HAD A LIST OF INSPECTORS GOING INTO THE MAY 8 PRIMARY. Duh!

This is unexcusable, plain and simple. If White were having problems getting inspectors she should have been on the media everyday making the calls for people to help out. My sources tell me they knew a least a week out they were having problems getting inspectors. Also, Democrats are the majority party in Marion County, as Mayor Bart Peterson gleefully pointed out at last week’s Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Indianapolis. And these people can’t find 200 people to work the polls?

What’s even more pathetic about this is it took White an entire week to make the confession they neve had the inspectors. And she did it on a Friday so it could appear in Saturday’s paper, a day of very light readership. Sorry guys, you don’t get off the hook that easy.

City-County Council President Monroe Gray is asking the public to forgive White, saying she’s inexperienced. You could have fooled me from last year’s campaign rhetoric. In addition, White says on her website that she served as chair of the Marion County Advisory Council on polling place acessibility under the Help America Vote Act.

What’s really unfortunate here is that not only was this election poorly run, but White’s own character and integrity is now in question, because instead of being straight with the voters and the media early on, she stalled and gave answers that were less than forthcoming.

White will have a long way to go to regain the public’s trust, if she ever gets it back at all.

I just woke up from my afternoon nap after playing polo to some new information. The big question now is why those poll workers never showed up? The City-County Council is going to have an investigation. But it’s starting to look like the reason the inspectors never showed was because they all quit at least a week before election day. This feeds into my union conspiracy theory. But it’s just theory. I’m off for evening cocktails. See you all on Monday.

There’s another controversy brewing this morning at the Marion County Clerk’s office. Apparently the computer chips which keep track of votes tallied and other important data are missing in about 40 machines. This is just going from bad to worse. Time for my massage appointment.

Even though I’m on vacation, the information still comes in. Although Marion County Clerk Beth White has claimed her office was caught off guard by the no shows of up to 200 poll inspectors, sources close to White say they knew they were short by at least 130 inspectors a week before the election and were actively trying to recruit. This is another contradiction by earlier public statements by White that were prepared for the May 8 election, and another blow to her already strained credibility. I’m going back on vacation now.

This is my last post before I get out of town, dammit! Something has been bothering me all day. I don’t understand how up to 200 poll inspectors decided not to show up for work today. In the past, at best ,10 percent of the inspectors don’t show. Usually it’s because someone is ill, or has an emergency come up. But I find it very hard to believe that Democrats controlling the Mayor’s office, Clerk’s Office, Sheriff’s Department, Auditor, Surveyor, Assessor, Coroner, Center Township, Wayne Township, Pike Township, Warren Township, Lawrence Township and Washington Township, along with every union in town that they couldn’t find 200 poll inspectors.

What I’m hearing on the street is that this might actually be the result of dispute between Mayor Bart Peterson and organized labor. I’ll be working on the details while I’m gone. But something doesn’t seem right folks, and I plan to get to the bottom of this. Too many citizens were disenfranchised today. And if this is what I think it might be all about, and I hope it’s not, this town will go nuts. Back on Monday, for real this time.

I was supposed to be back in Springfield this afternoon, but instead I spent the day running around Marion County following up on voter problems. We all know this morning was a disaster. One hundred and seventy-five inspectors didn’t show up. A lot of polls didn’t open on time. A number of people didn’t get a chance to vote. Beth White has apologized. Democrats are looking to figure out how to fix this problem in November. There was one precinct on the near southwest side of town which had been closed finally opened around 2 p.m. And in another precinct, they were so short-handed, a man who came in to vote was asked to be an inspector. This has been a big giant cluster(you know what that rhymes with truck). But what makes this story so sad, is after all these years of Democrats yelling about the incompetence of Republican-run elections, in the smallest voter-participating election they drop the ball. I believe everybody gets a chance to screw up and gets a mulligan. Beth White has used hers.

By the way, if you didn’t get to vote today and you tried to you’re out of luck. The polls will not stay open past 6 p.m..

I can now start my vacation. See you Monday.