Early Voting Down Sharply In Lake County

It appears the infusion of Chicago-style politics into Indiana's presidential election four years ago has dissipated this year with the Obama campaign all but conceding the Hoosier state to Mitt Romney, who polls have shown holding a double-digit lead. At the half-way point of early voting in heavily-Democratic Lake County, election board officials report that 10,378 early votes have been cast. In 2008, there were 36,000 early votes cast by election day. At the current rate, early voting is down nearly one-third. That compares to the 18% higher rate reported by the Marion County Election Board this past weekend. In 2008, Obama beat John McCain by fewer than 30,000 votes, 50-49%, to win Indiana's 11 electoral votes.