Porter County moving to vote centers; officials note ease




Porter County Clerk Jessica Bailey goes over a map of proposed polling places for next year under a plan to use vote centers after the Dec. 16 Election Board meeting. AMY LAVALLEY/photo

Porter County Clerk Jessica Bailey goes over a map of proposed polling places for next year under a plan to use vote centers after the Dec. 16 Election Board meeting. AMY LAVALLEY/photo

The Porter County Election Board is holding a series of meetings for public input on plans for vote centers for next year’s May primary.

The preliminary plan, which the board approved unanimously with bipartisan support at its Dec. 16 meeting and still must go before the County Council and the Board of Commissioners, allows Election Day voters to cast ballots at any polling place in the county, rather than one specifically for their precinct.

“We are not a vote center county now but for all intents and purposes, in early voting we are. It makes it more convenient and easier for voters,” said board member Ethan Lowe, one of the board’s two Republicans.

Voters already can cast ballots outside their precinct during early voting, officials said, and while the number of polling places on Election Day would drop from 61 to 44, officials hope the switch offers greater ease and convenience.

For the 28 days before the election, residents can vote where they want, said Clerk Jessica Bailey, a Democrat.

“On Election Day, they are pigeon-holed,” she said, noting the proposed vote centers. “This would allow Porter County voters to vote anywhere they wanted during early voting and on Election Day.”

A steel mill worker who lives in Kouts, for example, could vote at the Burns Harbor Town Hall on the way to or from work, and commuters could vote at the Ogden Dunes Fire Station, Bailey said, adding a voter who showed up at one polling place and encountered a long wait could head to another one.

“This really will make voting easier and more accessible,” Bailey said.

Indiana has 53 counties using vote centers, according to a release earlier this month from Indiana Secretary of State Holli Sullivan. That includes Starke and St. Joseph counties; a full list can be found at https:// www.in.gov/sos/elections/ voter-information/ways-tovote/ vote-centers/.

The 2019 purchase of epollbooks made the switch possible, Bailey said, noting the “elephant in the room,” the chaotic 2018 general election which included more than a dozen polling places opening late.

If the county had vote centers then, she said, voters could have gone to another polling place to vote when polls didn’t open on time.

Bailey’s proposal included a preliminary map of polling places because she’s still waiting for final approval from some of the locations. For the most part, though, the majority of the polling places are in public buildings including schools and libraries. Some are in churches, in areas where public buildings aren’t nearby, and a couple are at hotels, as well as a few fire stations and town halls.

Once the plan, including all the polling places, is approved by county officials, Bailey said she would go “above and beyond” notifying the county’s voters through mailings, social media posts and the like, as well as making sure candidates know, too.

“We want to make sure people have no way to not know this is happening,” she said. “There shouldn’t be a reason people cannot find a place to vote.”

While the number of polling locations will drop, the number of workers needed for elections will not because that is dictated by the number of precincts in the county, which stands at 123, Bailey said.

Board member Jeff Chidester, also a Democrat, said he also would like to see early voting expanded, including more locations and more hours, to take the pressure off on Election Day. “It really eases the transition,” he added.

Lowe agreed.

“Something like 45% of all the votes cast in the election came in early voting,” he said of last year’s presidential election, adding the number is trending up. “I think we need to accommodate that.”

The switch also garnered support from the chairs of the county’s Democratic and Republican committees.

“I’ve been in favor of it for a long time. We have the right equipment,” said Porter County Republican Party Chair Michael Simpson, who attended the meeting.

The move is the proactive thing to do, he said, and will be easier and more convenient and could increase voter participation.

“While everybody thought 66.5% was a nice number, it was poor in my estimation and needs to better,” he said of turnout in November 2020. “I think this helps, I really do.”

Porter County Democratic Party Chair Drew Wenger said in a prepared statement that the bipartisan plan proposed to the Election Board “was the result of intensive negotiations between several different parties to create a long-term solution for the future of voting in Porter County.”

The plan consolidates polling places that were near one another and set as many permanent polling places at public buildings as possible, he said, as well as allowing voting at any polling location in the county on Election Day.

“No more are the days where a working person must rush back to their home neighborhood to vote after a nine- to 12-hour shift, they can just stop by the closest polling location to them on their route to or from work and cast a ballot,” Wenger said.

In addition to the upcoming community meetings, a 20-person committee comprised of council members, commissioners, the county’s information technology department, poll workers and the community also will work through the proposal, Bailey said.

The meetings take place at 5 p.m. Wednesday in Room 102 A of the county administration building, 155 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso; at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 5, in the commissioners chambers of the administration building; and 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13, in the commissioners chambers of the administration building.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *