Changes are being made to the ways Hoosiers are accustomed to voting because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Primary election day will not take place on Tuesday, May 5. It has been moved to Tuesday, June 2.

All deadlines associated with the election also have been moved by 28 days.

The deadline to register to vote in the primary or to update an existing registration is now Monday, May 4. That can be done at indianavoters.com or by contacting the Brown County clerk’s office at 812-988-5510.

The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is now 11:59 p.m. Thursday, May 21. All Indiana voters now have the option to have a ballot mailed to them which they can complete at home and send back in, rather than having to visit a poll to vote in person on election day. This is a way to still vote while not going out into a public and possibly crowded place.

To request a mail-in absentee ballot application, contact the Brown County clerk’s office at 812-988-5510, or go online to indianavoters.com and click on “get absentee forms.”

That ballot application must then be mailed, emailed, faxed or hand-delivered to the Brown County clerk’s office, which is in the lower level of the courthouse, by May 21. The email address to use here is [email protected], the fax number is 812-988-5562 and the mailing address is P.O. Box 85, Nashville, IN 47448.

When mailing that application back, it’s important to know that the P.O. box for the Brown County clerk’s office printed on the state’s ballot application is wrong. The application says P.O. Box 81, but it’s actually P.O. Box 85. Clerk Kathy Smith said she’s notified the secretary of state’s office about the problem; other election board members and League of Women Voters of Brown County President Shari Frank also were going to ask state officials that it be corrected, as Smith said she had already heard from at least one voter who had received a ballot request marked “undeliverable.” Smith said she’d also talked with the local post office about the error and asked if they could try to keep an eye out for that wrong P.O. box number and direct mail for the clerk’s office to the right one.

Voters who are physically unable to go to a voting location are able to apply for a “traveling board” to take a ballot to them and help them vote, if needed. That application and instructions for completing it also can be downloaded from indianavoters.com or requested from the county clerk’s office.

Polling places will still be open on Tuesday, June 2, but all of them might not be where they normally are. The Brown County Election Board has not yet made any decisions about primary election day voting procedures.

In-person absentee or “early” voting also will be an option, but during a shorter period than it is normally offered. The Indiana Election Commission set the in-person absentee voting window for between Tuesday, May 26 and noon on Monday, June 1. The local election board has not set exact times yet. Earlier this spring, the absentee voting location was moved out of the County Office Building in Nashville.

More on mail-in voting

Frank, of the local League of Women Voters, was among the 200-plus people from around the state who sent written comments to the state election commission about mail-in voting for the primary.

Frank’s concerns included the deadline to return a mail-in ballot. Currently, that deadline is by noon on election day. However, it isn’t easy to determine when mail will arrive, so voters can’t be sure if they put their ballot in the mail early enough for it to be delivered to their voter office by noon and be counted, she said. It’s also confusing and unusual to have a deadline in the middle of the day, when most election deadlines are at the end of the day or by postmark date, she said.

Frank, on behalf of the League’s board, asked the Indiana Election Commission to allow absentee ballots postmarked by election day to still count, and to allow voters to turn in absentee ballots in person at their polling place up until the polls close on election day if they choose.

The state commission did not vote on those or any other suggestions at the April 22 meeting.

Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson told viewers of the governor’s April 16 press briefing that Indiana has had absentee voting in person and by mail as options for years, and she “feels good about the process in place.”

Gov. Eric Holcomb echoed that sentiment. “We’ll have a safe and secure election,” he added.

To a question about why the state wouldn’t just mail every registered voter a vote-by-mail application, Lawson said that that would be too expensive. Instead, she referred voters to the indianavoters.com website, where they could download and email in a mail-in ballot application, and thus save the first two steps of having that application mailed to them and mailed back before the ballot could be sent to them.

Indiana applied for $7.9 million worth of federal COVID-19 funds to aid with its election, Lawson said. The state has opted to use that money to purchase masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and other personal protective equipment for use at polls, and to communicate about voting options to Hoosiers, Lawson said.