HAMMOND | A federal judge said he will decide Monday whether to open early voting centers in Lake County's largest cities as Democrats, unions and the NAACP demand -- centers Republicans are trying to block.

Indiana is an acknowledged presidential battleground state and thousands of Lake County residents already have cast paper absentee ballots or voted early in person at the Lake County Government Complex in Crown Point since Monday.

Democratic Party efforts to open satellite voting centers in the Gary, Hammond and East Chicago county courthouses have been on hold while U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen decides whether they are legal.

He heard eight hours of testimony and argument Friday morning and afternoon from lawyers of both political parties, the Indiana chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Service Employees International Union.

At the end of the day Van Bokkelen announced, "One thing I can say categorically is that my mind is not made up."

He promised a decision Monday in time for county officials to know whether they can open their satellite centers as early as Tuesday morning.

State law requires each county to open one location for people to vote in person between Oct. 6 and Nov. 3 and permits more early voting locations in Lake if the bipartisan county elections board unanimously approves them.

The elections board voted 3-2 on the issue last month, with Democratic Party members in support of them.

Democrats said they would open the satellites anyway to make voting more accessible to an estimated 30,000 people in north Lake County who want to vote early to avoid long lines on Election Day, Nov. 4. GOP County Chairman John Curley filed suit to stop them.

Lawyers for County Clerk Thomas Philpot, chairman of the elections board, the union and NAACP said the federal voting rights law forbids the county from denying early voting in predominantly black and Hispanic communities, while allowing it in predominantly white Crown Point.

Lawyers for Republicans said they fear so many early voting sites will make vote fraud more likely and that federal law doesn't make ease of voting early a constitutional right.