St. Joseph County Commissioners delay vote on abolishing voter registration board

SOUTH BEND — The St. Joseph County commissioners tabled a vote Tuesday night on a resolution that would have abolished the county’s board of voter registration.

The resolution states that it would save the county a “significant amount of money.” The duties would instead be given to the county’s circuit court clerk.

Several people, including members of the local League of Women Voters, spoke against immediately passing the measure at the commissioners’ meeting, raising questions about fairness and public trust.

As stated in the resolution, the duties would be divided among clerk’s office employees while ensuring that 50% of them be affiliated with the Republican party and 50% with the Democratic party.

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But here’s where many of the speakers at the meeting raised an issue: If there’s an odd number of employees, the clerk would be allowed to fill the remaining slot by choosing any employee regardless of political affiliation.

Among several other questions she had, Elizabeth Bennion, with the League of Women Voters, asked why the office couldn’t simply keep an even number of employees in these roles? By having the clerk choose someone when there’s an odd number of staff, she said, that could compromise public trust.

Why not, she asked, “remove the appearance of political bias?”

County attorney Mike Misch said that the newly elected clerk, Amy Rolfes, a Republican, has said there is now an even number of employees: four.

Speakers at the meeting urged the commissioners to delay their vote, arguing that the change needed more public input.

One man asked why the office would only select Democrats and Republicans when so many voters, like himself, are independent.

Bennion also asked commissioners: How much money would this save? How many people would need to be hired and how would they be trained? Would there be a designated person to answer voter registration questions?

Also from the League, Judy Bradford said she’s always found the voter registration board members to be “insightful” with intimate knowledge of the voter registration process.

To keep the public’s trust in voting, she urged officials that, if they go ahead with the move, they also go “overboard” with training and at least have a website page that answers “sticky questions” that are often hard to resolve.

When presenting the resolution, Commissioner Derek Dieter presented a press release from 2016, when then-Democratic Party Chairman Jason Critchlow endorsed a similar proposal by then-Clerk Terri Rethlake, a Democrat.

Commission President Carl Baxmeyer said that only three Indiana counties still have a voter registration board. He also pointed to the local 2016 proposal, saying, “This is not something that just came up.”

But, in 2016, The Tribune reported that St. Joseph County Republican Party Chairman Roy Saenz had attacked the Democrats’ proposal to move voter registration to the clerk’s office. In the 2016 story, Saenz questioned whether the county would lose “checks and balances or transparency” as he cited the 2011 scandal that sent former Democratic Party Chairman Butch Morgan to prison for forging voter signatures to get Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's names on the ballot.

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Also in that story, Critchlow countered that the move would make voter registration more accountable and transparent and eliminate petty bickering in the voter registration office.

Attorney Peter Agostino, who’s worked with the county on issues for more than 20 years, said issues with the voter registration board go back further than 2016. Moving the duties to the clerk’s office “will improve the county,” he said.

“I have no position on this resolution,” South Bend Common Council Member Rachel Tomas Morgan told the commissioners. “But this raises so many outstanding questions. … Do you really feel this is best for our community at this time … for civil rights?”

Josh Osbun of Wyatt, who said he’s worked as a voting machine technician for several years, urged commissioners to push back the proposal for another couple of years. He suggested officials do it when there aren’t major elections ahead, so there’s the least chance of disrupting the election process.

“I’m all for changes, but this is the wrong time to do it,” Osbun said.

Ultimately, after several speakers asked to table the resolution and to gather more input, Dieter made a motion to table it until the commissioners’ meeting on Jan. 24. That passed 3-0. Dieter asked those in the audience to email their questions to him so answers could be provided on Jan. 24.

The Jan. 24 meeting is currently scheduled for 10 a.m. on the fourth floor of the County-City Building in downtown. But, at the urging of people in the audience, who noted the ample attendance, Dieter said officials are working to see if they can shift it to an evening meeting, which typically start at 6 p.m.

Find a link to the meeting's agenda here in this story online. The resolution is on page 84.

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Commissioners delay vote abolishing voter registration board