Vote centers will not be coming to Starke County in the near future. The vote center plan failed to get the required unanimous vote during the election board’s fourth attempt Wednesday.
The measure would have cut the number of voting sites down to seven but would have allowed voters to cast their ballot at any of those locations, while also expanding early voting options. County officials and residents who weighed in on the plan were generally in favor, but Election Board Member Harrison Fields once again voted against it Wednesday.
“I’m still not convinced,” he said.
When Board President Marcia Bedrock asked what it would take to convince him, Fields replied, “I really hate to say it, but start all over and have a committee. Very first issue. Very first issue.”
A study committee was recommended in Ball State University’s guidelines for rolling out vote centers and was used by Marshall County during its planning process. A committee isn’t required under Indiana Code, but Fields had some concerns with skipping that step. “Only basically this small group, this board, is working on this and mainly [Clerk] Bernadette [Welter-Manuel],” Fields said. “In my opinion, we need a diverse board out of the community.”
Fields felt the committee should include not only county officials and poll workers but also business people and a chamber of commerce representative.
He also expressed concern that the cost of mailing notifications to voters was never fully worked out, but Welter-Manuel was confident that could be covered with this year’s budget. There isn’t enough money budgeted to continue using precinct polling places, though, since during budget discussions, the county council believed the election board was willing to move to vote centers. That means an additional appropriation will likely have to be considered.
Another concern from Fields was that diagrams of the interior layouts of the vote centers had yet to be drawn up, while Pulaski County’s vote center plan included them. “If I’m going to vote on this, I want to see this in there,” he said. “I don’t want to vote on something and then later see something else.”
The rest of the election board and members of the public questioned why Fields’ concerns are just trickling out now, rather than being brought up earlier in the process, which has been underway for several months. A suggestion that Fields vote in favor with the understanding that a study committee could be formed to suggest potential revisions failed to sway his opinion.
Since Wednesday was the deadline to submit a vote center plan to the state in time for the May primary, Starke County voters will presumably continue to cast their ballots at their specific precinct polling places.
