Indiana House District 10 incumbent Chuck Moseley, a Democrat, faced the most peril among Porter County’s three main legislative races Tuesday night with tens of thousands of votes not counted yet.
According to online vote totals, 36,201 ballots had been tabulated by 10 p.m. Tuesday. Officials reported that more than 40,000 voters cast a ballot during early in-person voting through Saturday and those ballots are not yet included in the results.
“The results posted on the Porter County website are the Election Day results, the final and complete results including Early Vote and Absentee will be posted as soon as possible,” according to a statement on the Porter County Elections and Registration Facebook page. “Our high speed count machine, purchased and designed to count an influx of ballots at a fast pace is not moving as quickly as designed.”
Former Porter County Council member Jeff Larson, a Republican, had a narrow lead Tuesday night over Moseley, who has served District 10 in the Indiana House of Representatives since 2009.
Republican incumbent Ed Soliday had the lead over Democrat Erika Watkins in Indiana House of Representatives District 4, a seat Soliday has held since 2007.
Watkins, a Valparaiso School Board member, stressed women’s reproductive rights during her campaign.
Republican Ed Charbonneau, who has served in the Indiana Senate in District 5 since 2007, had the lead over Democrat Leslie Nuss on Tuesday.
Porter County still had tens of thousands of ballots to count at nearly 9:30 p.m. The district sprawls across parts of Porter, Jasper, Starke, LaPorte, Marshall, Pulaski and St. Joseph counties.
Nuss said she would wait to see more results. “There are only a small amount of votes in so far, so it’s hard to tell,” she said. “If I lose, I will spend some time with my family and doing some things for me.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.