At Thursday’s meeting of the Monroe County election board, county clerk Nicole Browne delivered an update on early in-person voting for the May 2 primary election, which started on Tuesday.
As of 11:45 a.m. on Thursday (April 6), 134 voters had cast a ballot in person at the election operations center at 3rd and Walnut streets across, Browne said.
Browne also reported that 197 absentee ballots had been requested by mail and sent to voters. Of those 197 ballots, 25 had been returned, Browne said.
Bloomington voters will be electing party nominees for mayor, clerk, and nine city council seats. Ellettsville voters will elect party nominees for clerk/treasurer and town council.
In 2019, about 5,400 people showed up to the polls to cast a ballot in Bloomington’s Democratic Party city primary. Of those, about 2,000 cast their ballot early in person or absentee by mail.
The total number participating in the 2019 Bloomington primaries amounted to just 10 percent of registered voters.
April 20 is the last day to apply for an absentee ballot. Application for an absentee ballot, verification of voter registration, and a preview of the ballot are available through the Indiana secretary of state’s voter information portal.
Friday, April 7 marked the end of the pre-primary campaign finance period. That means next week, when candidates file their campaign paperwork by the April 14 deadline, the contributions and expenditures recorded on that paperwork will reflect activity just through April 7.
On Friday evening around 8 p.m., a poll of Bloomington’s mayoral race was launched, by a company called Dynata, using the same text-to-web methodology as The B Square’s poll in early March.
Running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for Bloomington mayor are Don Griffin, Susan Sandberg and Kerry Thomson.
Reached by The B Square, each of the three Bloomington mayoral candidates indicated that the Dynata poll was not theirs. Reached by The B Square, GOP county chair Taylor Bryant also indicated that the Republican Party was not conducting that poll.
Monroe County Early Voting Schedule
| April 4 – April 6 | 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. |
| April 10 – April 14 | 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. |
| April 17 – April 21 | 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. |
| April 22 | 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. |
| April 24 – April 28 | 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. |
| April 29 | 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. |
| May 1 | 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. |