A bill for almost $11,000 has prompted the North Judson Town Council to consider changing the town’s election cycle. The bill for last November’s town election was eventually forgiven by the Starke County Council, but during Monday’s town council meeting, Council Member Josh Brown said the county might not be willing to do that in the future.
“And they encouraged us to, perhaps, look at getting on an election cycle that was the same as a presidential and a congressional cycle, in an effort to save money,” Brown explained. “Otherwise, you’re going to be putting this in the budget for $10,000 because that’s about what it costs to run the election.”
One possible scenario is that the clerk-treasurer and town council members for wards 1, 2, and 3 would be elected to a one-year term in 2023, and then elected during presidential election years after that. The two at-large council seats are already elected during midterm elections.
But Council Member Jane Ellen Felchuk noted that the actual cost of keeping the current election cycle would depend on whether Starke County switches to vote centers, which would consolidate the town’s three polling places into one. “She’ll have to give us a price of what it would take if they move to centralized voting centers because that $10,000 was for putting up three centers,” Felchuk noted.
Efforts were made to switch to vote centers for this year’s election, but the measure failed to get the required unanimous vote from the Starke County Election Board on four separate occasions.
No decisions were made, but council members agreed to let Town Attorney Justin Schramm look into the process of changing the election cycle. He noted that other towns he represents have already done it. Similar discussions have also begun in Hamlet.
