Election board set to meet on Dec. 26, but chance for vote centers in Monroe County appears to be fading

On Thursday, a committee that met for the first time about a year ago made some progress towards completing a plan to establish vote centers in Monroe County.

The plan is required under Indiana state election law to implement a vote center system for Monroe County—something that supporters of the concept hope to do in time for the 2026 elections.

In connection with the vote center study committee’s work, a meeting of the three-person, bipartisan Monroe County election board has been set for Dec. 26 (the day after Christmas)—possibly to consider a vote center plan, if it is finished by then.

Vote centers are polling locations where any registered voter in the county can vote, not just those who live in the precincts that are assigned to a specific location. One argument in favor of vote centers is that they provide a simple answer to the question: Where can I cast my ballot? Answer: At any voting location.

But there are two hurdles to establishing a vote center system before the end of the year, or even in time for the 2026 elections. One barrier is legal, while the other political.

The legal barrier stems from the fact that on Dec. 26, under state law the election board would at most be able to hold “a public hearing to present a draft plan for administration of vote centers in the county.” It’s only after the minimum 30-day public review period, after such a hearing, that the election board could vote to adopt an order approving the draft vote center plan.

That means an election board vote on the adoption of a plan won’t happen before year’s end. It’s not even clear that the Dec. 26 election board meeting has been noticed as a hearing for presentation of a draft vote center plan, or just an ordinary meeting of the board.

The political barrier is the required unanimous vote of the three-member board. The Monroe County Democratic Party’s appointee to the election board, John Fernandez, and the elected county clerk, Nicole Browne (also a Democrat), are in principle in support of vote centers.

The current Monroe County Republican Party appointee, Judith Benckart, also leans in favor of vote centers. But Benckart recently announced her resignation effective at the end of the year.

GOP chair William Ellis, who also serves on the vote center committee, and who makes the party’s appointment to the election board, is skeptical of vote centers, and has called them a “solution looking for a problem.” Ellis questions whether there is good evidence that vote centers lead to cost savings or to an increase in voter participation.

Ellis’s choice to replace Benckart is John Arnold, who has a professional accounting background, and has been active in the county’s Republican Party leadership.

Last week, Ellis responded to a B Square question about whether he had subjected Arnold to a vote center “litmus test” before deciding to appoint him. Ellis said it was not a “litmus test,” but vote centers had factored into it. The appointee to the election board is supposed to reflect the “will of the political party,” Ellis said.

Benckart’s recent resignation letter contemplated a scenario where a special meeting of the board would be called before the end of the year for a vote on the plan.

But as Ellis revealed towards the end of Thursday’s committee meeting, the wording of his appointment says that Arnold’s service on the election board is effective “next meeting, or as of January 1st 2025.”

That means it will be Arnold who is the GOP appointee when the Dec. 26 meeting of the election board is held.

At Thursday’s meeting, the wording of Ellis’s appointment came to light when Ellis asked about the reason for the urgency of the board to meet on Dec. 26.

The idea had been that if a vote were taken before the end of the year, then it would be Benckart’s yes vote instead of Arnold’s no vote that would be cast.

Committee chair Ilana Stonebraker responded to Ellis by saying, “This [edition of the] election board has made very clear they want to meet with us very quickly.” Stonebraker added, “We will have a new election board in the new year, and we’re afraid that changeover is going to jeopardize this work.”

It was at that point that Ellis noted the changeover would take place as soon as this year, if the election board does, in fact, meet on Dec. 26.

For its part, the committee is looking to complete its assigned task, sooner instead of later. On Thursday, committee member Steve Volan put it like this: “I think that we should finish the darn document, regardless of what else happens.”

So the committee is looking to try to meet on Dec. 20 to try to wrap up a draft vote center plan that could be presented to the election board at its Dec. 26 meeting.

On Thursday, the committee did make one significant change to the draft vote center plan  that it had been working on—by deciding to recommend using 29 vote centers, instead of just 22.

In the most recent election, held on Nov. 5, Monroe County used 29 precinct-based polling locations. The sentiment in favor of using all existing polling locations as vote centers is based in large part on the idea that the first election using vote centers, in 2026, could be a year to gather data on where people actually voted, then make adjustments based on those patterns.

The committee’s vote to go with 29 locations instead of 22 was not unanimous, as committee chair Ilana Stonebraker dissented. She declared the outcome of the vote by stating, “Then we’ll move forward with 29.” She immediately added an energetic: “Let’s do it!”

Assuming in the next couple of weeks, the committee is able to complete a  vote center plan that can be set for a 30-day public review period, a adoption of vote centers could see a vote by the Monroe County election board in late January or early February 2025.

Monroe County is currently one of the 27 counties in the state of Indiana that still use precinct-based polling locations. The other 65 counties have adopted vote centers. In 2011, when a vote was taken on the election board to establish vote centers in Monroe County, it was just 2–1, with dissent coming from the Republican Party appointee.