If you’re planning to vote early in person yet this month, be prepared to wait in line for a little while.
On first day of early voting Oct. 6, 177 county residents showed up to the new election office at Deer Run Park to cast their ballots in the eight hours the poll was open.
That pace has been fairly steady throughout the past week.
Early, in-person absentee voting started Oct. 6. This year it’s taking place in the lower level of Veterans Hall on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Early voting will go until noon on Nov. 2.
Early voting is also available on two Saturdays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Oct. 24 and 31.
Absentee voter board members Deb Noe and Julie Cauble attended the Oct. 6 Brown County Election Board meeting to give a report on how the first day of early voting went.
“Everything seemed to work fairly well,” Cauble said.
The two did ask for another electronic voting machine. “The first part of the day was paper (ballots). As soon as someone asked for electronic, it went crazy,” Noe said.
“There was one line to get into vote and another line, they were ready to vote, but they were waiting for electronic machine. That’s how popular those are.”
Clerk Kathy Smith said she would bring another machine to them the next morning.
Cauble said there was a problem with the poll books not reading the new state driver’s licenses that are more brownish. Deputy Clerk Laura Wert asked Cauble to get a photo of a license that cannot be read so she could send it to the poll book vendor to see if an update is needed.
Smith said she was also going to work on getting more people to help with early voting due to the projected turnout. Absentee voting workers are appointed by the Democratic and Republican Party chairmen.
Early voting clarification
Resident Sherrie Mitchell attended the Oct. 6 meeting to ask why she had to fill out an absentee voter application when she went to vote early in person.
On Oct. 7, Indiana Election Division co-director Angela Nussmeyer explained that voters who vote early in person are required to fill out and sign the absentee voter application if a county does not use an electronic poll book for check-in.
Brown County is using an electronic poll book, but Nussmeyer said that an election board can choose to use both if that’s what they think is appropriate.
Signing a poll book or signing the absentee voter application is part of the signature review process that is required by law as a way to create a paper trail for ballots.
“It’s the same concept as the application for an absentee ballot so that you’ve got the application, then you know who showed up to vote, but that gets detached before any of the envelopes are opened,” said election board member Mark Williams.
“This is a paper trail that you have for absentee voting and you have the paper trail for early voting. It’s basically the same paper trail.”
Board President Amy Kelso was not at the meeting. Her proxy, Michael Fulton, attended in her place.
Mitchell said she had a problem with having to list the last four digits of her Social Security number on the application, which was highlighted for her to do so. Cauble said that part of the application must have been highlighted by mistake and was optional. Voters only need to list their address, then sign and date it.
“The reason I wanted to talk about this is I want the public to have confidence in the voting process, so if we could educate the voter about this is a legitimate form,” Fulton said. “Going forward, highlight only required information, not anything optional.”
Williams said ballots that are cast early, via mail or in-person, will be counted on election day. When that happens, election workers will look at the envelope the ballot is in, which has the voter’s signature it, then look at the form to confirm the signatures.
Mitchell also expressed concerns about voters not maintaining spacing or wearing masks while waiting to vote. She said she waited until a woman who was not wearing a mask left before she entered a waiting room to vote.
Cauble said there were marks on the floor to encourage people to stay apart in the waiting room. Gloves and masks were also on hand for voters to use.
“All you can do is mark 6 feet apart. Most people stand outside and wait in their cars. The room is not very large, but that’s what we have to work with,” Williams said.
Cauble said there were Xs on the floor to encourage social distancing and she would make sure they are 6 feet apart.
Fulton encouraged the absentee voting workers to reach out if they need additional resources.
“There are different levels of concern people have, and I think we need to be accommodating for a lot of people,” he said.
Counting early votes
Democratic Party Chair Rick Bond asked the election board if they were expecting to ask for additional help from him or Republican Party Chair Mark Bowman to count absentee ballots on election day.
“You have 170 today. Tomorrow it may be 200. On election day I don’t think we’ll be very busy because I think a lot of people will vote early. Half of the people will vote early,” he said.
The board signed resolutions that will allow an “expedited review by absentee ballot counters of absentee ballots cast in person” and a resolution to start counting absentee ballots any time after 6 a.m. on election day.
For the primary election, Smith said people only had one week to vote early in person, and around 500 people chose that option.
“If you figure we have four weeks of early voting, are we going to have 500 for the week for each week? We don’t know,” she said.
Williams said the board will know later this month, after seeing early voting stats, if extra help will be needed to count those ballots on election day.
“We started working on the primary day at 9 or 10 a.m. … They were done and counted by the middle of the afternoon,” he said.
On primary election day, they counted around 1,200 ballots. Williams said if that doubles to 2,400 in the general election, they could start counting right after 6 a.m.
Duplicate ballots
The situation of at least one Brown County voter receiving duplicate ballots in the mail also was discussed at the meeting.
Absentee voting workers said the duplicate was sent out due to human error as they process a historically high amount of ballot applications.
There was also worry that more vote-by-mail problems may arise, because many voters who applied for ballots early had a pre-set date of Sept. 19 entered into their record on SVRS (Statewide Voter Registration System), indicating when their ballot was sent to them. That was a default date set by the system.
Republican Precinct Committeeman Ben Phillips attended the Oct. 6 meeting to express his frustration about other residents who had received duplicate ballots. He said the double ballot issue was due to incompetence from both Smith and the absentee voter board.
Fulton said Phillips should volunteer to help improve the process or find others who may be willing to help.
“We all want the election to be flawless. Unfortunately, in every election I know of, there has been some kind of error. Not saying that is OK, but that is reality,” he said.
“We need to work hard at doing the best we can. The public trust is hard to maintain when there are errors.”
Williams said he believed the absentee voter board had appropriate and accurate training. He said the problem of the duplicate ballot was “compounded” by the pre-set date in the SVRS.
“You couldn’t distinguish if there had been a ballot already issued initially. That is solved now,” he said.
“The effect of that was not properly understood. It wasn’t properly understood anywhere. Now we’re over that hump and are in much better shape.”
He said that due to the high volume of applications, there “was an insufficient check and balance to determine if there was a quality problem.”
“You’re right. It shouldn’t have happened, but I went out this week and spoke to the members of the absentee voter board. I am satisfied they understood what happened and why it happened,” Williams said to Phillips.
“They made changes in the process and in the personnel. We have not had an ongoing stream of these problems.”
Williams said that Brown County is not the only county experiencing these types of issues ahead of election day either.
If a person received two ballots in the mail, they would still only be able to cast their vote once on election day. “The first one will be accepted, then the poll book will reject the other. It will cancel itself out,” Smith said.
The election board will meet once more before election day. That meeting has been set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the Brown County Public Library.
