Indiana lawmakers this year tasked the secretary of state’s office with studying whether to require all counties to use vote centers.
Some Hoosiers are pushing back on the idea at a series of public meetings on the issue.
Vote centers allow voters in a county to cast their ballot at any polling place, instead of one tied to their precinct. Two-thirds of Indiana counties use vote centers — a number that’s grown steadily since they were introduced more than a decade ago.
But some Hoosiers object to them. Ann Ihms is from Howard County. She worries about technology problems, particularly with electronic poll books.
“My poll book at my center did not match the poll book at the county courthouse, during an election,” Ihms said. “It’s like, good grief, that’s a major issue — because we had voters that weren’t showing up in our poll book that they said, ‘Yeah, they’re in our poll book down at the county.’”
All Indiana counties use electronic poll books, even non-vote center ones.
Other Hoosier citizens said vote centers, particularly in large counties, make voting much easier.
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Research on vote centers show mixed results when it comes to voter satisfaction and turnout.
But Ball State political scientists say the studies do make one thing clear: Vote centers save money.
The secretary of state’s office solicited the help of the Voting System Technical Oversight Program at Ball State, or VSTOP, to put together its legislatively-mandated report.
VSTOP’s Matt Housley compared Indiana vote center counties with precinct-based counties. He said vote centers don’t save much money on location costs or equipment — but they do save money on workforce.
“What we found is that precinct-based counties needed more staff, right, to staff all of those precincts,” Housley said. “And they spent nearly 50 percent more on their poll worker pay.”
Secretary of State Diego Morales said the report his office submits to lawmakers won’t include a recommendation.
“Our main goal is to listen to our constituents here,” Morales said.
The report is due by Nov. 1.
Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.