MADISON COUNTY, Ind. — A former Republican candidate running for an Indiana seat in the U.S. House of Representatives has been arrested and charged with stealing several election ballots during a recent voting machine test.
Larry L. Savage Jr., a candidate in the Republican 5th District primary held earlier this year, was arrested Tuesday morning by Madison County authorities and charged with destroying/misplacing a ballot and theft. He has since been released on a $500 cash bond.
The charges filed against Savage, a 51-year-old Anderson resident and precinct committeeman, stem from an incident on Oct. 3 in which two election ballots went missing at the Madison County Government Center during testing of the local voting machines.
Court documents show county officials began testing voting machines at 10 a.m. on Oct. 3, an event open to the public. Several citizens attended the tests and were allowed to run “test” ballots through the machines assigned to their county.
Despite being marked “test,” the ballots were still officially tracked and counted by the State and included real candidate names as well as differing votes. After testing, officials found one straight-Republican ballot and one write-in ballot were missing.
A review of security footage, which was subsequently being live-streamed online, showed Savage handling the two missing ballots. He can also be heard confirming with an election official that these are “absolutely, totally real ballots.”
In the video Savage can be seen looking around the room before folding up two ballots and putting them in his sweatshirt pocket.
Is this testing process normal or only specific to Indiana? Are the “test” ballots that are used added to the overall count and then subtracted after the fact, is that why he said he “fucked up count”? Or was the intention to steal the ballot to cast during election day?
He a republican stole actual ballots which would have counted both in the test phase and in actual results to prove elections couldn’t be trusted.
Presumably be didn’t think they would check the camera and see him.