Inset: Larry Savage Jr. (Madison County Jail). Background: Savage is suspected of stealing election ballots during testing of county voting machines (Madison County Board of Elections).
In Indiana, a 51-year-old former Republican congressional candidate was arrested this week on suspicion of stealing ballots during a public test of the state’s ballot card voting system. Elected District Commissioner Larry Savage Jr. was taken into custody Tuesday and charged with one felony count of destroying or misplacing a ballot and one misdemeanor count of theft, authorities said.
In May, Savage finished sixth in the Republican primary for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District with 1.9% of the vote. “I am a MAGA candidate for the 2024 U.S. Congress,” Savage said on his campaign’s Facebook page, saying one of his reasons for running is to restore “fair and transparent elections.”
The incident occurred during a Voting System Technology Oversight Program (VSTOP) test at the Madison County Government Center on Oct. 3, 2024, according to an Indiana State Police news release.
“This test requires manual entry of pre-audit groups of ballots marked to record a predetermined number of valid votes for each candidate and each general question,” police explained in a release.
“After the inspection process, the used ballot papers will be treated as if they had been used on election day. Before using the voting card voting system in an election, representatives of political parties, candidates, the media and the general public should be should be published and tested.”
The Oct. 3 test involved four voting machines and 136 “actual candidate ballots marked for testing,” investigators said. After inspection, officials said they discovered two ballots were missing from the initial ballot tally. The investigation uncovered multiple videos that allegedly showed Savage being instructed on the validity of the test ballots and then “folding both ballots and placing them in his pocket.”
The test was live-streamed on the Madison County, Indiana, government website. At about 12 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, Savage can be seen crumpling up two ballots and stuffing them into his pocket.
A judge issued a search warrant for Savage’s home, and the missing ballot was found in his car.
According to a report on the Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN, Savage put the ballot in his pocket and immediately approached the woman who was in attendance and told her, without saying anything, that she wasted her ballot. It is said that The woman reportedly streamed the test on Facebook Live, but then went to the election board and asked if there was a shortage of test ballots.
In fact, Savage reportedly commented on the woman’s livestream, effectively admitting that he had received a ballot.
“3 ballots missing!!! lol,” he wrote, based on a screenshot of the feed obtained by WXIN.
“Don’t take anything,” Savage added.
Savage appears to have posted a third comment on his feed, but the text is cropped in the screenshot.
The station reported that as Savage left the building, he was seen showing another man the ballot he allegedly had in his pocket outside the building. The other man allegedly slapped Savage on the back several times in response.
A video of police confronting Mr. Savage at his home was posted online, in which Mr. Savage claims to the officer that he asked an election official if the ballot used for inspection was a “real ballot.” is reflected.
“She said, ‘No, this is a sample ballot.’ So when she said that, I rolled it up and put it in my pocket,” Savage told the officer. “I didn’t know we wouldn’t be able to receive that stuff. They even call it a ‘sample.’ ”
Savage told the officers that he was 10 minutes late for the meeting and that he may have missed a direct warning against taking his ballot. After WXIN was informed that footage of the event showed Savage never asked for permission to take a ballot, he admitted he had not, but said he believed he had been granted permission. It was reported that he claimed.
“When you go to Payless or wherever you go, it says sample, so you can usually get a sample,” Savage said. “So that’s how I did it. I thought it was a fake ballot.”
After the officer read the warrant, Savage appears to have said: “They’re after us patriots. They don’t want us to be Americans anymore.” Moments later, he told police, “This is all political bull–” It is said that he spoke.
When police searched his cellphone, they found text messages that clearly indicated Savage was fully aware that removing ballots from the facility was a crime, according to court documents.
After his arrest, Savage was released on $500 bail. His first court date has not yet been scheduled.
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