Vigo Election Board supports pause in ballot counting if necessary

Mar. 15—While no official vote has been taken, members of the Vigo County Election Board say they are OK with recessing late on an election nights if all ballots are not counted and then returning to finish the next morning.

After a March 3 Election Board meeting, Vigo County Clerk Brad Newman said a consensus of the board supports halting the count if it extends to 11 p.m., then reconvening in the morning.

Election Board President John Kesler said he agrees with the clerk, saying he supports the concept. The board did not take a formal vote, but it could if that is necessary, he added.

Kesler said he would research whether the board needs to vote.

"That was discussed at least a couple of times in the past," Kesler said. "We discussed it sitting there [at the courthouse] at the last election, and we have talked about it every election when we are there to 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.," he said.

"I will look into it. If it needs to be a formal vote before the Election Board, then we will formally vote on it. ... I feel confident, if we have to vote on it, it would pass unanimously."

Kesler added that if an election count is close to done, counting could be extended beyond 11 p.m.

"If it is 11 p.m. and they tell me we are so, so close, I would say in that case, let's keep going," Kelser said. "Last election, we were there until well after 1 a.m.

"In the [2024] presidential election, I anticipate a huge turnout and it might take a while," Kesler said.

Board member Jerry Arnold said, "We did talk about it ... but nothing was officially moved and seconded before the board."

Like Kesler, Arnold said if a count is close, he thinks counting should continue.

"Why stop and we have to come back the next day if there is only 25 minutes worth of work left to do," Arnold said.

However, he would hold a different view if more than two hours of counting work remained.

Arnold said the board may have to establish a basis of when to continue, whether based on time or percentage of ballots remaining.

"I would support [stopping and reconvening], but to my knowledge it has never come officially before the board," Arnold said.

County election boards do have the option of recessing and reconvening the next day to count ballots, said Angela M. Nussmeyer, co-director of the Indiana Election Commission.

"State law says that the central count of absentee ballots has to be continuous once it begins. However, the county election board is meeting so they can follow the open door law and recess their meeting, including stopping the central count of absentees, and announce the date, time, location of when they will reconvene with their business," Nussmeyer said.

"The Board can continue to recess and reconvene to complete their central count and then canvass the unofficial returns from Election Day and the central count until the deadline to certify the results to the state," Nussmeyer said.

All results on election day remain unofficial until certified by the election board, which meets to review provisional ballots, plus count any mailed military and overseas ballots.

Once that is completed, the election board then votes to certify the election results. That certification is to be done by noon on the second Monday after the election.

The Vigo County Election Board currently has two Republicans — County Clerk Newman and Arnold — and one Democrat, Kesler.

Randy Gentry, chairman of the Vigo County Republican party, said "the clerk is elected to run the election, and I defer to the clerk on how he wants to run the operation," Gentry said.

"If the clerk believes he must halt operations at 11 p.m., that is his decision to make," Gentry said. "In the perfect world, we would count the votes and get the results out as soon as possible. This was the way it was done for decades, even back to the era of paper ballots."

Gentry added, "I also understand staffing concerns and have had the misfortune of sleeping at the courthouse watching the ballots overnight. The workers and staff get tired, [and] it can be a brutally long day that starts for some as early as 4 a.m. and goes past midnight. There are human limits," he said.

Joseph Etling, chairman of the county's Democratic Party, said he "has had an opportunity to be an observer of elections for quite some time and it seems it has gone in ebbs and flows as far as getting results more promptly than other years."

"Hopefully the Election Board can continue to work toward getting the most efficient results in the most efficient time possible. I don't think anybody wants to have people staying up all night," he said.

Yet, Etling said voters and the public "are interested in getting the outcome and results as quickly as possible. With the advances in technology, I would think those would be more quickly produced than in past years when they did not have the same level of technology.

"I think those are things that the Election Board is continuing to address with companies that are working on the election," he said.

While Etling said he does not see an issue for this year's municipal election, "I think it something the Election Board will continue to have conversations about leading up to [the presidential election in] 2024."

Lindsey Eaton, communications director for the Indiana Secretary of State's office, said the state election division does not track which counties opt to halt and then resume counting.

The Tribune-Star contacted five other counties, similar in size to Terre Haute/Vigo County, and only one stops at a designated time.

"Typically we go until a certain time, depending on how much left there is to do," said Kennth Grant, election office supervisor for Vanderburgh County. Evansville is the largest city in that county.

"The last election we went until 11 p.m. and in the last presidential election it took us 21/2 days to get through, so going straight [through] we would not have had anybody left to work, they would all have been sleeping in the chairs," Grant said.

Grant said the county had been watching House Bill 1154, which would allow voters to place a ballot into a ballot reading machine, but not have the ballot counted until election day, as a way to speed up the counting process.

The bill died in a 6-6 tie vote last month before the Indiana House Elections and Apportionment committee.

Officials in Delaware (city of Muncie) County; Monroe (city of Bloomington) County; Tippecanoe (city of Lafayette) County; and Madison (city of Anderson) County each said election workers remain and count ballots until finished.

In 2008, Delaware County officials worked through the night and into the next morning, working 36 hours straight to count ballots.

"That is when we had a problem with the ballot counting machine, so normally we are not that late," said Mary Retherford, election director for the county.

Howard Greninger can be reached at 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Follow on Twitter @TribStarHoward.