Mr. STEVENSON. Except where you had the marks and the mutilated ballots.

Mr. THOMAS. Of course.

Mr. STEVENSON. Of course.

Mr. THOMAS. The ones that clearly ought to have been thrown out.

Mr. STEVENSON. Yes.

Ms. GARBER. We are not here to certify the election night count. Mr. STEVENSON. No.

Ms. GARBER. What we see as the major harm is that thousands of votes were thrown out after the recount and that did affect peoples' constitutional and Federal rights.

Mr. THOMAS. Let me say that I expressly identify with Mr. Stevenson's comments in terms of the right to vote, the precedent. However, I want to underscore the point, Mr. Stevenson, that I believe that the election laws that are on the books, however flawed someone may think they are, I think were put on the books with the best of intentions in terms of the allowing of people to vote under a free election process.

They may wind up, in fact, being used in a way that they deny people the right to vote, and when that is denied unfairly, they ought to be changed, but I don't think they were put there for the purpose of denying people the right to vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PANETTA. Mr. Clay?

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Stevenson, just to follow up on the last question-not particularly the last statement-but if your vote had been counted election night, would you have had any grounds or status for going into court?

Mr. STEVENSON. No.

Mr. CLAY. You couldn't have gotten into court, could you?

Mr. STEVENSON. We wouldn't have had any grounds for going.
Mr. CLAY. I think that answers that.

You made a statement in your remarks that it was strange how these 53 precincts were chosen. Could you elaborate on that? Mr. STEVENSON. Well, I—

Ms. GARBER. Which one?

Mr. CLAY. Either one. Mr. Stevenson made the statement.

Mr. STEVENSON. I made the statement because out of 157 precincts, only 53 precincts were chosen and then in the fourth ward, when you look at the number of precincts in the fourth ward compared to the number of precincts in the other wards and the percentage of precincts that were challenged in the fourth ward, it is greater than the percentage in the other wards; and the precincts that were challenged in the fourth ward were predominantly black. They were 80 to 90 percent black as far as voter participation was concerned.

Mr. CLAY. OK.

Ms. Garber, isn't it true that State law permits selective choosing of precincts for recounting and that there is no requirement to pay for that?

Ms. GARBER. Yes-no, it is not true there is no requirement to pay. The first part of what you said is true, but other sections of

the Indiana statutory code do require that the candidates pay for it and where they have challenged and cross challenged, I think they have to work out an allocation of some kind of the proportions of what they have challenged. So they have to pay for it.

Mr. CLAY. So there was a financial indebtedness in that particular recount?

Ms. GARBER. Yes; by statute there is, yes.

Mr. CLAY. As I understand what your suit is about, if you count all the ballots, then you eliminate some of the petty partisan politics in the process that has been alluded to.

Ms. GARBER. That is correct.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. I have no further questions, Mr. Chair

man.

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you very much, Mr. Clay.

Thank you both for your testimony.

That concludes the testimony today. I want to thank all the witnesses who presented their testimony. As I stated at the beginning, this is a difficult task resulting from, I think, an unfortunate situation. It would be far better if people could vote on election night and have their votes counted and have a winner declared at that time. Unfortunately, that did not happen in the eighth district.

My hope is that we are in the process of resolving this issue and that we can resolve it as soon as possible.

Thank you very much for your participation again. Thanks to the people of the eighth district for their cooperation.

This hearing is now adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the task force adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]

Afternoon Session

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1985

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

TASK FORCE ON THE

INDIANA EIGHTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT,
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION,

Rockport, IN.

The task force met, pursuant to call, at 3:05 p.m., in the Spencer County Circuit Court House, Hon. Leon E. Panetta (chairman of the task force) presiding.

Present: Representatives Panetta, Clay, and Thomas.

Staff present: Karl Sandstrom, deputy counsel/elections; and Kathee McCright, senior legislative analyst/elections minority.

Mr. PANETTA. The task force on the Indiana Eighth Congressional District election is now in session for the purpose of evaluating ballots that I believe have been challenged-is that the proper word-at least have been set aside.

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Just segregated for your decision; "challenge" is a little too strong.

Mr. PANETTA. Strike "challenged"-segregated for the purpose of our consideration of the task force.

As I understand it, these are ballots in Vanderburgh County.

We have come to Spencer County because Mr. Shumway, the director of elections, was here in the process of counting, and it is the feeling of the Chair, since he is the director of elections, that his presence was necessary in order to help evaluate these ballots and determine what should be done.

So I would like Mr. Shumway, if you could proceed to let us know why these were segregated and counsel can then speak as to what their concerns were.

Mr. SCHWEITZER. Sure.

Mr. PANETTA. Then I would like to evaluate the rules we have established, and then I would like us to look at the ballots and see if we can't reach a determination as to whether they should be counted or not.

Mr. SHUMWAY. Very good.

Mr. THOMAS. May I say something, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. PANETTA. Sure.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you.

I just looked around the room at this public meeting which has been called, and I am not aware of any specific notice as to even where it was, so the press, if they wanted to come, could even find the location.

45-918 0-85——11

No one in this room could be classified as general public. I see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of the 10 people are staff, and 1 individual who is not staff is the attorney for 1 of the contestants.

So I am a little concerned

Mr. PANETTA. Is the gentleman objecting to holding this hearing? Mr. THOMAS. I am concerned about the statement we made in Washington that we were going to go to Indiana and in a public meeting decide the outcome of these votes. I think this meets the absolute barest minimum possible definition of a public meeting, which I don't think was in the spirit of the way in which it was offered.

Mr. PANETTA. Well-

Mr. CLAY. What would the gentleman advise?

Mr. PANETTA. What would you like us to do?

Mr. CLAY. Would you suggest we postpone the decision and issue a press release saying we are going to have a meeting, the public is invited, and stay here until tomorrow or Monday? Is that what the gentleman is recommending?

Mr. THOMAS. I am not recommending that.

My question is, is it necessary to decide these now in this way? Is there not another way, instead of chasing down the gentleman who has to be on the job making the decisions?

Can't we at our next meeting set aside a timeframe in which we bring together, since we are not in Vanderburgh County and it isn't timely on this decision-we have finished in essence the Vanderburgh questions.

So what is the difference between waiting a while and taking several counties at one time and making a decision in a reasonably duly noticed meeting rather than a rolling count, one county behind, as we follow the supervisor across the Eighth Congressional District?

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PANETTA. Let the Chair speak on this.

The Chair feels strongly about this. The Chair has been very patient about dealing with these issues. The Chair was very clear to the members that the purpose of coming here was not only to hold a public hearing, but also to evaluate the ballots that had been set aside.

There was nothing secret about that. Staff was aware of it and the gentleman was aware of it.

And every time now that we are going to evaluate these ballots, Bill, if you are going to raise those specious arguments, then frankly it will be very difficult. We are going to face some more serious charges as we go through the line.

And if this is the kind of precedent we want to establish, fine. I will not proceed if you are objecting to our proceeding now. Mr. CLAY. Will the Chairman yield?

Mr. PANETTA. I would be pleased to yield.

Mr. CLAY. If I am correct in my recollection, I think you announced at the hearing

Mr. PANETTA. Exactly.

Mr. CLAY [continuing]. In the hearing we just had what the purpose was for coming here. If the public and press wanted to follow us here, they had a legitimate right to do that. They had the