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ON THE TRAIL

May 7, 2008

Indy Series driver Sarah Fisher is backing Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic presidential race and she had planned to surprise the candidate yesterday morning by putting the campaign's "Hillary" logo on the team's powder-blue race car. Minutes before Clinton arrived at Fisher's garage on the grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the panels bearing the logo were taken off. It turns out a free advertisement on an IndyCar car meets the definition of a corporate donation, and that isn't allowed under federal campaign finance laws.

Authorities evacuated and searched three Barack Obama campaign offices in Indiana in response to a bomb threat made while people voted in the state's primary yesterday. The threats were made in a call to a Terre Haute, Ind. television station. Lewis Robinson of the Secret Service's Indianapolis office said the caller made threats against Obama offices in Terre Haute, Vincennes and Evansville. An Obama spokesman said there was little disruption to the campaign. Workers left the offices and continued working by cell phone. The reports mirror the circumstances of Obama's office in Vincennes being vandalized Monday morning. In that incident, a male caller also reported the vandalism to a station in Terre Haute.

About a dozen nuns in their 80s and 90s voting in Indiana were denied ballots yesterday because they lacked the necessary identification. The voting was carried out under a state law, recently upheld by the Supreme Court, that requires voters to produce a valid state or federal photo ID. Apparently that was news to the nuns from St. Mary's Convent in South Bend, who were turned away by a fellow sister. The convent will make "a very concerted effort" to get proper identification for the nuns in time for the general election, Sister Julie McGuire said.