Indiana's Lake County slow to count votes

GARY, Ind., May 7 (UPI) -- Slow vote-counting in the northwestern corner of Indiana caused some frustrating hours after the primary election polls closed Tuesday night.

While the rest of the state's counties were shoveling out vote totals regularly as they became available through the evening, Lake County, home to Gary where the mayor backed Barack Obama over eventual winner Hillary Clinton, was a black hole of results until after midnight. Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott, a Clinton supporter interviewed on CNN, called the situation "ridiculous."

"I'm not saying there's anthing improper but it looks improper," McDermott said, adding that "appearance of impropriety" was "unfortunate."

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay, in a phone interview with CNN, stuck up for his election officials as some of the best anywhere and said the delay was due to the time it was taking to count 11,000 absentee ballots. However, it wasn't clear about why results from computerized voting machines used by voters Tuesday couldn't have been released as they became available.

"There is no hanky panky going on here in Lake County," Clay said.

Eventually, the results came in and while Obama narrowed the gap, he couldn't overtake Clinton, who won the state by about 13,000 votes.