Muncie: Parties promise to register everyone in time for primary | The Star Press - www.thestarpress.com - Muncie, IN

Parties promise to register everyone in time for primary comes from Muncie's The Star Press and has to make you wonder what is going on over there:

MUNCIE -- A flood of new voter registrations prompted by the Obama-Clinton presidential contest will be processed in time for the May 6 primary, Margie Landers, Democratic member of the Delaware County Voter Registration Board, pledged Wednesday."

***

Delaware County's voter registration office has about 1,400 new voter registration applications to process by April 15. The office must meet the April 15 deadline so that new voters will appear on poll books the day of the election.

Democratic election board member Phil Nichols had expressed concern earlier this week that the office was understaffed, raising concerns that some of those new registration applications might not get processed in time.

Nichols blamed the Delaware County Republican Party for the manpower problem, noting they had declined to fill a spot within the registration office that was vacated two years ago.

Indiana Code says that "the number of employees shall be divided equally between the major political parties of the county."

As of Wednesday, there were three Democracts and two Republicans in the office.

Republicans argued that up until recently, a sixth worker was unnecessary and would have been a waste of tax dollars.