COVID color stays the same; vaccine site moves
Brown County’s COVID spread color stayed at blue, the lowest level, when the Indiana State Department of Health reevaluated counties’ statistics on July 7. Since June 30, Brown County had picked up seven new virus cases.
Current stats and changes between Tuesday, July 6 and Monday, July 12 are: 1,051 cases (up four), 4,620 residents tested (up seven), 43 deaths (no change) and 6,432 residents at least partially vaccinated (up 23). Our vaccination percentage is now 42.5 percent.
As of the first week of July, COVID-19 testing and vaccines have moved out of the Brown County Music Center and into the former Nashville police station at 200 Hawthorne Drive. That building is the new home of the Brown County Health Department. It can be reached at 812-988-2255.
Election board considers moving voting precinct lines
The Brown County Election Board will talk more in its August meeting about possibly moving all in-town voters to one voting precinct after the Nashville Town Council made changes to the way its members are to be elected.
Currently, in-town Nashville voters are split between the Washington 2 and Washington 3 voting precincts. Both precincts also contain out-of-town voters who have Nashville addresses, but don’t live in town limits. As a result, during the years when town elections happen at the same time as county elections, poll workers at those two precincts have to make sure that only in-town residents get ballots with town election candidates on them.
In May, the town council decided to do away with its three town council districts and instead elect all of its members at-large. That allows any in-town Nashville voter to run for any town council seat regardless of where in town they live.
State statute allows election boards to move precinct lines to take in an entire town, explained election board member Mark Williams. He said his preference would be to put all of in-town Nashville in one precinct, and then move the out-of-town Nashville voters who also had been included in that precinct into different precincts — for instance, all of in-town Nashville moving to Washington 3, and the out-of-town voters who had been in Washington 3 moving to Washington 2 or Washington 4.
Discussion was had about a need to keep the voting precincts relatively equal regarding the number of registered voters in each.
No decisions have been made yet; more discussion and a draft proposal are expected to be on the agenda of the Aug. 3 election board meeting. The board meets at 2 p.m. in the County Office Building’s Salmon Room.
