Next week, Brown County voters who had already requested ballots by mail may start seeing them arrive.
General election day isn’t until Tuesday, Nov. 3, but early voting preparations are being made now.
Voters will have two kinds of options for voting early: by mail, if your reason is specific and on the state’s list, or in person, for no specific reason at all.
In the spring, while Indiana was under stay-at-home orders, the governor expanded voting by mail to be available to anyone regardless of reason. No such changes have been made for the general election.
Early in person
In-person early voting will start Tuesday, Oct. 6, and will be at a new place this fall: The lower level of Veterans Hall at Deer Run Park. That’s the new office for Brown County Parks and Recreation, and in it is a room for the absentee voting board to work.
Unlike during the primary election in the spring, when in-person early voting was restricted to five days, voters can walk in to vote early for nearly a month before the November election, including the last two Saturdays in October. In-person absentee voting closes at noon Monday, Nov. 2, the day before election day.
The hours for in-person absentee voting have not been announced yet. The election board plans to discuss them at the next meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
“I think even though we will have a much higher turnout than in the spring, I think having 30 days of early voting versus five is going to be huge for the voter, being able to accommodate them that way,” said Brown County Election Board President Amy Kelso. “So, hopefully just the logistics of that alone will help immensely, just having that whole 30-day period.”
The Brown County Election Board also offers a “traveling board,” which goes to places like the nursing home to help confined voters vote in person. To request information about it, call the Brown County clerk’s office at 812-988-5510.
By mail
To vote by mail, you first need to apply for a ballot. That form can be downloaded from indianavoters.in.gov or requested from the Brown County clerk’s office in the courthouse. The completed application can either be mailed to the address shown on it, or carried into the clerk’s office for voters who might not want to wait for the mail to arrive.
Once the ballot application is received, the voter will be mailed an actual ballot.
To be eligible to vote by mail, a voter must either be:
- absent from the county on election day between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.;
- disabled;
- at least 65;
- conducting official election duties outside their own voting precinct;
- scheduled to work during the entire 12 hours the polls are open;
- confined due to illness or injury or caring for a person confined due to illness or injury during the entire 12 hours the polls are open;
- prevented from voting because of a religious discipline or religious holiday during the entire 12 hours the polls are open;
- participating in the state’s address confidentiality program;
- a member of the military or a public safety officer;
- a “serious sex offender” as defined in Indiana Code 35-42-4-14(a); or
- prevented from voting due to the unavailability of transportation to the polls.
Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson explained at an Aug. 26 press conference about COVID-19 what “confined due to illness or injury” means.
“If you’re confined to your home because of a condition that puts you at high risk (of COVID-19), you may qualify to vote absentee by mail,” she said. “But if you’re still going to the grocery store and running other errands, you are not confined to home.”
When you choose a reason why you’re eligible to vote by mail, that’s on the honor system, Brown County Election Board members said. No one checks each application to verify that someone really plans to be out of town on election day, for instance. Voters sign the application to affirm that everything on it is true.
Due to recent concerns nationwide with the speed and volume of mail service, Lawson shared some recommended deadlines to help the post office. She suggested mailing a ballot application to the county clerk’s office no later than 15 days before the election — Oct. 19 — and mailing a completed ballot back no later than seven days before the election — Oct. 27.
“However, my sage advice would be, don’t wait,” she said. “If you know you’re going to vote by mail, apply today.”
Lawson said the state was forecasting that between 1.3 and 1.8 million Hoosiers would vote by mail. As of Aug. 26, 99,146 requests for ballots had already been received, compared to 53,818 requested for the entire election period, spring and fall, in 2016, the last presidential election year.
In Brown County, as of Sept. 1, 305 voters had been approved to vote by mail so far, compared to 188 during the entire election period in 2016.
At their Sept. 1 meeting, the Brown County Election Board talked through a way to allow voters to drop off completed mail-in ballots instead of putting them through the mail. To do that, voters will need to bring their completed ballot to the early voting office on the lower level of Veterans Hall at Deer Run Park during early voting hours. That could be done as late as noon Nov. 2.
Offering a true “drop box,” where a person could drop off a ballot at any time without coming into contact with a person, is not legal, said Brown County Clerk Kathy Smith.
Lawson suggested that anyone who doesn’t qualify to vote by mail and doesn’t want to stand in lines on election day considers voting early in person, and doing it sooner rather than later.
Election day voting
The Brown County Commissioners are in charge of setting voting locations.
In the spring, everyone in the county voted at either Brown County High School, Brown County Intermediate School or Van Buren Elementary School, in an effort to make do with fewer poll workers and allow voters to spread out in some of the county’s largest buildings.
In the fall, voters in most precincts will return to familiar polling places in their own townships if they choose to vote on Nov. 3. The county commissioners approved this election day voting location list at their Sept. 2 meeting:
Hamblen 1: Sprunica Baptist Church
Hamblen 2: Hickory Ridge Community Center
Hamblen 3: Church of the Lakes
Jackson 1: Fruitdale Volunteer Fire Department (Bean Blossom)
Jackson 2: Fruitdale Volunteer Fire Department (Bean Blossom)
Jackson 3: Jackson Township Fire Department (Helmsburg)
Jackson 4: Jackson Township Fire Department (Helmsburg)
Van Buren: Southern Brown Volunteer Fire Department
Washington 1: The Pentecostals church
Washington 2: Parkview Church of the Nazarene
Washington 3: New Life Church
Washington 4: Parkview Church of the Nazarene
To make this plan work, though, dozens of poll workers will be needed. Those are appointed by the Republican and Democratic parties. Poll workers are paid to work on election day and to go through training.
Historically, most poll workers have been retired people, and with the pandemic hitting that population the hardest, there’s been concern statewide about finding enough people to staff polls. Lawson encouraged younger Hoosiers to step up and learn the jobs.
To toss your name in the hat, contact Brown County Republican Party Chairman Mark Bowman at [email protected] or Brown County Democratic Party Chairman Rick Bond at [email protected].
