Alea iacta est: Nov. 5, 2024 general election results, served when ready

Election Day polls for Nov. 5, 2024 have now closed in Monroe County

The cutoff time was 6 p.m., which made for a 12-hour voting day. But anyone in line by 6 p.m. has to be allowed to cast a ballot.

Voters who joined the line just before the closing of the polls are just one reason that results can’t be reported immediately at 6 p.m.

Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne typically cautions against expecting any results before 7 p.m. The earliest votes that will be reported are from in-person early voting and mailed-in absentee ballots.

Sources for results:

• Indiana Secretary of State results website
• Monroe County GIS countywide results website
• Monroe County GIS precinct-level results website

The B Square will add time-stamped updates to this article from Election Central, where all the ballots are turned in from the Election Day polling places.

6:05 p.m. Here at Election Central, election workers are still processing mailed-in absentee ballots.  Based purely on The B Square’s experience and estimate, that could easily push any initial unofficial results reporting towards 8 p.m.

6:33 p.m. Election supervisor Kyle Farris confirms: Any initial results will realistically be reported towards 8 p.m.

6:45 p.m.  One reason 8 p.m. is a key time for reporting is that under Indiana state election law, at least some initial results have to be reported by then, with hourly updates after that.

The three election board members—John Fernandez, Judith Benckart, and Nicole Brown, are currently huddled around a screen adjudicating mismarked ballots. They are examining the markings the scanner has flagged as problematic. Voter intent is the key concept. The ballpark estimate of the number of ballots that fall into that category is 1,500. They have not yet begun to adjudicate the votes for write-in votes for the at-large county council race.

6:54 p.m. The team from Meadowood has arrived with their ballots and other materials to turn them in. They are the first polling station to report in. Right behind them is the team from Faith Lutheran Church.

7:00 p.m. The team from the election operations polling location has arrived with their materials.

7:06 p.m. The team from Harrodsburg Community Center and the team from Burgoon Baptist Church have arrived.

7:10 p.m. The prize  for arriving first is awarded to the Meadowood team by county clerk Nicole Browne: KitKat bars.

7:14 p.m. The team from Sherwood Oaks Christian Church apparently slipped into Election Central undetected by The B Square, but they have turned in their ballots. Bloomington High School North has just arrived.

7:18 p.m. Someone arrives at Election Center hoping to cast a ballot. Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne delivers the grim news. He says he just got off work, and figured he would check.

7:25 p.m. A flurry of teams has reported in: Fairview Elementary, Emmanuel Church, St. John’s Catholic Church, Christ Community Church, and Unionville Elementary.

7:29 p.m. The Academy team has reported in.

7:32 p.m. By The B Square’s count, 16 polling locations have yet to turn in their results.

7:34 p.m. For what it’s worth, neither Brown County nor Jackson County have reported any initial results from the District 62 race to the state’s website.

7:34 p.m. Highland Park Elementary, Souls Harbor Church, Tri-North Middle School, University Elementary School, Indian Creek Lions Club, Binford Elementary, Eastview Church, Indian Creek Lion’s Club, and a few others.

7:58 p.m. Summit Elementary reported in at some point. The B Square has reconciled its list with the Election Central list.

8:02 p.m. Kyle Farris just handed GIS coordinator John Baeten a USB drive with initial results. That means we’ll see some initial numbers shortly: Monroe County GIS reporting.

8:11 p.m. First results are in: Initial Monroe County Election Results. I have updated the tables below with the results of local interest.

8:25 p.m. Smithville Christian Church,  Jackson Creek Middle School teams, and Stinesville have reported in.

8:49 p.m. The only remaining location yet to report in is Ellettsville Christian Church. When IMU reported in, they turned in 186 provisional ballots.

9:04 p.m. Ellettsville Christian Church has delivered their ballots. That’s the final location. Another batch of results in imminent. John Baeten, the GIS coordinator,  is here, waiting for the USB drive to upload to the results display.

9:09 p.m. The USB drive has been handed over. The next batch of results will be available shortly: Monroe County GIS reporting.

9:14 p.m. Here’s the unofficial results reflecting the second batch: Including Batch 2 of Monroe County results.

9:23 p.m. One of the more remarkable outcomes are the Election Day tallies in the Monroe County commissioner District 3 race. For the results so far, those who voted on Election Day split almost evenly between Joe VanDeventer (R) and Jody Madeira (D).  The edge goes to VanDeventer with 9,812 votes compared to 9,738 for Madeira.

9:28 p.m. None of the ballots with write-ins for the county council at-large race have been included yet in these initial results, yet.

9:50 p.m. The mailed-in absentee ballots are currently being scanned in. After that, there’s still write-in ballots that have to be adjudicated. Current estimate for time needed to adjudicate is around an hour. So it will be more than an hour from now when the final unofficial results are ready.

10:04 p.m. Monroe County sheriff’s deputy checks in here at Election Central to see if the election board thinks the counting activity  will go past  the end of his shift. The answer is yes, so he will be notifying his supervisor so that the handoff to the next deputy can be made.

11:19 p.m. Current project: The computer is being set up with all the official names for write-in candidates, so that votes can be assigned to them. The adjudication of the write-ins has already been done by the election board.

11:39 p.m. The final USB drive  of the night with additional results data has been handed off to GIS coordinator John Baeten.  The next batch of results will be available shortly: Monroe County GIS reporting.

11:45 p.m. Here’s the final unofficial results for Monroe County: Final unofficial results for Monroe County.

The tables below will sit at the bottom of this article regardless of time-stamped updates. They will be populated  with numbers as they are available

Here’s a key table that The B Square will try to maintain starting right after the polls close at 6 p.m. It provides a guide to when it might be reasonable to start expecting to see any results reported from Election Day. If a row is not shaded, it means ballots from that location have not yet been turned in at Election Central—which means that results from that location cannot be reported yet. [Poll Location Map]

The numbers from Jackson County is from the state election results website. The Brown County total comes from the Hall campaign and the Monroe County Democratic Party, which independently provided matching numbers to The B Square. But there’s no confirmation yet from Brown County government.

[Note: The Latin in the headline means something like “the die is cast.” Julius Caesar is supposed to have said it when he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy. Apparently some translators interpret it to mean that what’s done is done, but it’s apparently the subject of some scholarly controversy. It can also be analyzed as meaning something more along the lines of “the gamble has been taken.” In any event, it was a tradition of local Ann Arbor attorney David Cahill to post the phrase to local online outlets exactly when polls closed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It’s a good tradition, one which The B Square transplants to Bloomington without apology.]