Stories like this make you hope there are people being diligent about watching people at the polls tomorrow. An Indiana election office removed a Democratic poll worker due to allegations that he was trying to persuade voters to support certain candidates.
Fox News Digital reported:
The incidents took place at a polling place in Carmel, Indiana, under the Hamilton County Election Office. Hamilton County election administrator Beth Sheller declined to confirm the poll worker’s identity in an interview with Fox News Digital, but detailed a report from the inspector at the polling location.
Sheller stated that the inspector had learned of two separate incidents that may constitute electioneering and election interference. The poll worker, first identified by Chalkboard Review executive director Tony Kinnett as James Zheng, is now reportedly being investigated by the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, and Sheller says she hopes to see Zheng prosecuted.
The first instance occurred on Thursday evening as a group of education activists was standing outside the polling facility. Sheller explained that the worker told a pair of black voters not to vote for the pro-parent candidates and said the activists outside were “racist.”
The black voters cast their ballots and then approached the activists to tell them what the poll worker had said about them being racist. The activists reported the incident to other workers inside.
In a second incident, Sheller said this poll worker assisted a voter with an electronic ballot and pressed the “straight Democrat ticket” while explaining how it works. The voter became confused and asked another poll worker how to change the selections. This was also reported to the polling inspector.
Naturally, if these are the two incidents that were made public, it would cause one to wonder how many other times Zheng attempted to influence voters at the ballot. Sheller gave assurances that “the two incidents were isolated,” because people would have reported other instances to poll workers.
However, there is absolutely no way to know this for sure. How many people did Zheng try to persuade that didn’t bring it up to election workers? Even further, how many more are engaging in this conduct at the polls?
This individual was only caught last week, meaning he could have been electioneering during the state’s entire early voting period. Given that the stakes are pretty high in these midterm elections, it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest this might be occurring on a wider scale.
