THE FRAUD THAT FAILED

IN a last-ditch attempt to defeat Gary's Mayoral Candidate Richard Hatcher, the local Democratic machine set out to steal the vote in vintage Tammany Hall style. And the machine under Boss John Krupa, Hatcher's archfoe, was just the outfit to do it. As secretary of the board of election commissioners and the board of canvassers, Krupa dropped from the registration lists the names of 5,286 voters, mostly Negroes. At the same time, hundreds of fictitious registrations were added so that paid impostors could cast ballots against Hatcher. Since his winning margin last week was only 1,389 votes, the scheme undoubtedly would have worked.

Fortunately, Hatcher was one step ahead of the machine. He fired off a telegram to Attorney General Ramsey Clark urging that the Justice Department intervene; then, a week before the election, he charged in Federal Court that Krupa and others were violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His charges drew nationwide attention and brought demands for federal action from both of Indiana's Democratic Senators, Vance Hartke and Birch Bayh.

Ghosts. Within two days, all the names purged from the registration lists were quietly restored. Nonetheless, Clark dispatched 22 FBI agents to Gary. They began photographing records in Lake County's Crown Point courthouse, and made a name-by-name check of new voters in white neighborhoods. Soon they found enough evidence of registration irregularities for a Government suit charging discrimination.

Day before the election, a panel of three federal judges heard the combined suits of Hatcher and the Government. Gary resident FBI Agent Donald Lotz testified that investigators had already discovered 1,096 "ghost" voters registered in 33 precincts. The most damaging testimony to the anti-Hatcher forces, however, came from a veteran Democratic precinct committeewoman who first confessed to LIFE Correspondent Bob Bradford, and then told her story to the FBI.

Greying, matronly Marian Tokarski, 35, a party official for twelve years, testified at the trial that she had been instructed by Democratic workers to register fictitious voters in her all-white precinct in Glen Park. In all, testified Mrs. Tokarski, she added 51 fraudulent names to the registration rolls.

Peaceful & Fair. "They told me that we would have to cheat because the other side was cheating," Mrs. Tokarski said out of court. "They had me believing that Hatcher was a Communist. But what I was doing began to bother me. I just couldn't live with it."

Only 13 hours before Gary's polls opened, the panel of judges issued a six-part injunction to foil the fraud. More than 1,000 false names were ordered removed from the voters' lists, and officials were sternly warned to obey election laws. With rumors of violence spreading in some white neighborhoods, Gary's entire 268-man police force was put on a twelve-hour shift, and Democratic Governor Roger D. Branigin ordered 300 state troopers and 5,000 National Guardsmen to be ready to move into the city on 30 minutes' notice. As it turned out, incumbent Gary Mayor A. Martin Katz noted, "This was the most peaceful election in Gary's history."

Thanks to Hatcher's alertness and the Federal Government's prompt action, it was also probably one of the fairest in recent times.

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