SOUTH BEND — Voters in St. Joseph County have rejected the creation of a Regional Transportation Authority by an overwhelming margin.

It took more than three hours to hand count all the votes Tuesday night, but the preliminary results show a landslide:

Yes: 1,053

No: 19,640

The preliminary results will be hand counted again on Wednesday, then sent to Indianapolis to be certified.

The lone question on the special election ballot read as follows:

"Shall there be created the Northern Indiana Regional Transportation District under IC 8-24 to provide a regional rail system serving Lake, Porter, LaPorte, and St. Joseph Counties and regional bus public transport system service Lake and Porter Counties with St. Joseph County becoming a member of the district?"

Opponents of the referendum question--including St. Joseph County's Republican Party--launched a campaign in recent weeks urging voters to answer "no." Saying "yes," they said, could have authorized a 0.25% increase in the county's local option income tax to pay for new busing service in Lake and Porter Counties and fund upgrades along the South Shore rail line.

St. Joseph County election officials printed 40,000 paper ballots for the special election, and predicted historically low turnout.

Instead, they found crowded polling places--some with lines up to 30 minutes long at times--and a total voter turnout of nearly 11%. That's far higher than first anticipated.

Some voters said there's a simple reason why.

"I think they got the message out that this was not going to be good for our part of the city and for St. Joseph County," said Bill Oblenis, who voted against the referendum.

"It's an important vote," agreed Dean Kessler, who voted at the Centre Township Fire Station. "We pay enough taxes as it is."

Turnout was so high at that fire station, that lines still stretched more than 50 deep, holding up vote totals during hand counting after the polls closed.

"It's an experience for the public, and it's an experience for us," said St. Joseph County Clerk Rita Glenn.

But, for some in the public, it was an "unpleasant" experience.

At the Centre Township Fire Department, where eight precincts from Centre and Greene Townships were combined into one polling place, election workers hit a snag early in the afternoon.

"I ran out of ballots around 2," said election worker Mary McDonald. "I said, we're out of ballots. And, most people stayed here and waited. But, one guy got quite mad and stomped out of here."

"I said, is this a joke? He said no," said Kessler, who waited briefly, then left.

"I told him--I'm serious--we've been waiting here a long time. The parking lots are full. People are parking on the street," Kessler continued.

"It's been like this all day. It looks like a Presidential election," chimed in Oblenis.

"He said, they have no ballots," said Pat Burky, pointing to Kessler. "I said, I'm leaving. [I was frustrated,] absolutely. As were a lot of other people."

And, not just in Centre Township.

Three hours later at Dickinson Intermediate Center, there was a familiar tune.

"We ran out of ballots, and we had a line of people waiting to get those ballots," said election worker Leta Johnson.

Same story at polling places for Olive and Warren Townships, Portage and German Townships, the Penn Township Fire Station, Penn High School and Cornerstone Church in Clay Township. All had to have at least one extra dose of ballots delivered at some point during the day.

But, in most of those cases, election workers said new stacks of ballots were delivered quickly.

"They came in about 10 minutes, just like they told us," said Johnson. "Most people did wait around, and they weren't angry at all."

The shortages, officials said, were simply due to a higher turnout than anticipated.

"It was never our intent to make anybody wait any longer. Our intent was to make sure they did vote and that we saved money," said Glenn.

St. Joseph County only opened 30 of its usual 230 polling places, Tuesday. Glenn said she was confident costs would be kept under the $40,000 budgeted for the election. Normal election costs, she added, run between $300,000 and $400,000.

Because of the reduction in polling places, some voters complained that they couldn't figure out where to vote, but Glenn said that isn't usual.

"That's always happening when we have an election. Last year, a lot of people voted in the lobby of the County-City Building. So, I'm not sure they would have known where they were supposed to vote anyway," Glenn said.

"I think we accomplished what we set out to do," Glenn continued. "And that was to hold and election as the law stated, while keeping costs down for taxpayers."

It seems costs were what decided the referendum question for taxpayers, too.

was on the minds of many *voters too.

"We [showed up here to send a message,]" Oblenis said. "And I hope everybody else did too."

It's the same message voters in Porter County sent.

The referendum question was voted down there, too, by the following margins:

Yes: 3,122

No: 12,255

Voter turnout in Porter County was near 15%.

At least two of the four counties included would have had to vote "yes" to create the Regional Transportation District. LaPorte and Lake Counties refused to hold their votes.