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BY ROYAL M. HOPPER III
Times Correspondent | Friday, June 16, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
Major Moves, election reform and infrastructure improvements are the state's orders of the day, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita told an audience in Schererville on Thursday.
Much progress has been made is these areas, but much more remains to be done, Rokita told a group of fellow Republicans at a Business for Better Government breakfast in his honor at Tiebel's Restaurant.
Allen Rose, of Valparaiso and a former neighbor of Rokita, wanted to know exactly how election reform was being undertaken.
Rokita touted reforms in the way Indiana handles absentee ballots, including making it a felony to "electioneer" to voters receiving the ballots and to falsely claim you are 65 or older on ballot applications.
He said the statewide voter database now ensures that deceased voters are taken off the rolls. Rokita said he favored spending the money necessary to complete the database by tracking down so-called motor voters and pinning them down to one address or taking them off the rolls.
He said $3.83 billion had been spent on election reform so far.
The sale of the Indiana Toll Road to a private company should also be expedited, he said, pointing out that the state has only been able to pay back $50 million of the $200 million bond it floated to pay for the road in the 1950s. It is unrealistic to expect the road to pay for itself in public hands anytime soon, he added.
The lawsuit challenging the sale is costing the state $500,000 a day and should be stopped, he said.
On the local front, the airport and the train system in Northwest Indiana should be improved and "reclaimed," Rokita said. The move would encourage professionals and businesses to move to the area and help create jobs, he said.
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