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COUNTY’S LATE COUNT DIMS HER VICTORY

A gritty, corruption-plagued county that sits adjacent to Sen. Barack Obama‘s home state of Illinois almost cost Hillary Rodham Clinton an Indiana win last night, and kept suspense over the outcome going until early this morning.

Indiana’s Lake County, with 500,000 residents, was still sifting through ballots after midnight – long after polls closed elsewhere in the state and results had been reported.

And it made the final results in Indiana a nail-biter. Only well after 1 a.m. were the results from northwest Indiana fully reported and it was clear that Clinton would survive. The tallies arrived more than six hours after the polls had closed – a mind-boggling delay.

In the bulk of Indiana, Clinton was ahead by at least 4 points for most of the evening before the Lake County vote started coming in. But with more than 11,000 absentee ballots to be counted, results were arriving slowly. They heavily favored Obama, given the heavy African-American population in the county, and trimmed Clinton’s victory to a squeaker of just 2 points.

Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary, the biggest city in Lake, said Obama – whom he is supporting – was racking up huge margins there.

“Let me tell you, when all the votes are counted, when Gary comes in, I think you’re looking at something for the world to see,” Clay told The Washington Post in an interview at Obama’s campaign headquarters there. With Post Wire Services