The Starke County Council received an update from Election Day during their meeting last week.
Starke County Clerk Bernadette Welter-Manuel explained that operations went smoothly throughout the day. She said there were no technical issues. She went on to announce voter turnout came in at 40.30 % in Starke County. Welter-Manuel added that was lower than she had expected. She said wait times were a little higher than she would like to see and that one Vote Center had nearly a two hour wait period all day.
Welter-Manuel went on to ask the council to consider purchasing more voting machines to help offset some of the longer wait times. She said as of now Starke County has 45 voting machines in use. That was based on voting registration numbers from the year 2000 when the current machines were purchased. With current registered voters in Starke County just under 18,000, Welter-Manuel suggested the council think about purchasing eight more machines as well as four more poll pads.
The council took the request under advisement and asked to have a needs assessment done to find out what all the county will need to update.
