Election Day Nov. 5, 2024: Polls are open in Monroe County, Indiana
At 6 a.m. sharp came the announcement from the front door of Monroe County’s election operations building at 3rd and Walnut streets: “Hear ye, hear ye, the polls are now open!”
Such an announcement is a requirement of Indiana state election law.
Standing in line when the door opened were 13 voters. The polls close at 6 p.m.
Election Operations is the Election Day polling site for just some voters—those who live in the following precincts: Bloomington 3 and 7; and Perry 6, 8, 15, and 31. On Election Day, you can’t vote at any polling location you like.
Find your proper polling station here: Indiana Voter Portal. Here’s another way to look up the same information, provided by the Monroe County GIS team: Monroe County voter information.
If you’re already looking ahead to seeing the initial unofficial results, here’s a few places to check, after the polls close:
- Indiana Secretary of State results website
- Monroe County GIS countywide results website
- Monroe County GIS precinct-level results website
The B Square will file timestamped updates through the day with vignettes from different polling locations.
6:00 a.m. Election operations The first voter arrived around 5:52 a.m and by the time the doors opened, 13 people were standing in line. They formed the queue straight out in the parking lot, but through the day election workers will likely wrangle any lines to run along the building and wrap around to the public sidewalk.
The temperature is around 67 F degrees. The forecast is for rain, but later in the day, starting around 4 p.m. The could lead to stronger turnout in the earlier part of the day, as voters look to avoid rain. Here’s how the opening of the polls sounded.
Audio: “Hear ye, hear ye, the polls are open!”
6:18 a.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update In her first emailed updated of the day, Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne reports that the number of registered voters, who were properly registered before the deadline, is 95,734. As of yesterday, 30,625 voters cast an in-person ballot during early voting. In the first 15 minutes of voting across the county, 984 voters cast a ballot.
6:50 a.m. Bloomington High School South Two campaigns are represented here, both for the District 62 state house race, between Dave Hall (R) and Thomas Horrocks (D). Greeting voters for Hall is Monroe County resident Logan Collins. Welcoming people for Horrocks is Peter Iversen, who will be recognized by many readers as a current Monroe County councilor.
According to the election inspector inside, there were 37 people in line when the doors opened. The tally of voters so far is 131. A technician from B&L IT Services is here to address a scanner issue. He diagnoses the problem as dirt on the lens. Apparently a good wipe is all it needed and it’s back up and scanning ballots again.
7:00 a.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update In her second emailed update of the day, county clerk Nicole Browne reports that 2,825 voters have voted in the first hour. The two busiest polling locations so far are St. Johns Catholic Church (209 voters) and Ellettsville Christian Church ( 225 voters).
7:24 a.m. Jackson Creek Middle School Mia Seifers is here representing the Thomas Horrocks (D) campaign for District 62 state representative. On behalf of Dave Hall’s (R) campaign for the District 62 seat is Hall himself, Abigail Wagner and Sydney Hall. Here representing Jennifer McCormick’s campaign for governor is Paul Farmer. They say around 30 to 35 people were standing in line when he polls opened.
According to the election inspector, 160 people have voted here so far.
7:40 a.m. Sherwood Oaks Christian Church It’s again the District 62 race that has campaigns represented. Here for Dave Hall (R) is Perry Robinson. For Thomas Horrocks, it’s Daniel Jenkins. They have just posed for an Indiana Daily Student photog, but are willing to submit to another photo.
The total number of voters so far is 102, which had to be tallied from four poll books, because the ballot scanner refused to work. A call to B&L IT Services got a technician onsite, according to election inspector Nancy Goswami, but the replacement scanner also refused to accept ballots. Ordinarily, after they’re inserted into the scanner, they fall to the bottom of the ballot box. With no scanner in place, voters are just inserting them manually into the box. They will be scanned later when they’re turned in at Election Central after the polls close.
8:00 a.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update In her update, Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne reports just the two polling places with the least number of voters so far with 32 voters each: Burgoon Baptist Church and Meadowood Retirement Community.
8:09 a.m. Eastview Church Again represented here are both campaigns for District 62 state house. Here for Dave Hall (R) is Chris Silverman. Here for Thomas Horrocks is Sarah Larson. Joe VanDeventer’s (R) sister-in-law Mary is here for his District 3 county commissioner campaign. VanDeventer is running against Jody Madeira (D).
9:00 a.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update According to Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne, 7,386 voters have cast a ballot so far on election day.
For reference, the 2016 Election Day total was around 29,000.
9:53 a.m. Christ Community Church This is the first stop where the B Square has encountered nobody representing any of the candidates. The tally so far is 219.
10:15 a.m University Elementary School The two District 62 state house campaigns are represented here, as they are at many other polling locations. Holding a sign for Dave Hall (R) is Brett Heinisch—readers might remember him as a Bloomington city council candidate for District 3. Representing the Thomas Horrocks campaign is Jillian Kinzie. Readers will recognize her as a Bloomington plan commissioner.
According to inspector Chris Eller, the tally from the two ballot scanners are 299 and 463, respectively. That works out to 762 voters so far. Eller says there were 14 people in line when the polls opened at 6 a.m. He says it feels like about double the number at the same time of day for the May primary election. One of the workers called in sick this morning, Eller said, but they shifted staffing around to make it work.
10:52 a.m. Burgoon Baptist Church So far 62 people have voted here. Four of the poll workers are high school students who are working the polls through the Hoosier Hall Pass program.
As one measure of the remoteness of Burgoon Baptist Church, it is still undocumented by Google Street View. On the drive back into town along SR 446, The B Square spotted a large bird perched at the top of a tree by the side of the road—a bald eagle. By the time The B Square had slowed the car, and grabbed a long lens, it had launched and was aloft, maybe on a course to its correct polling location to cast its vote.
11:00 a.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update According to Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne’s latest update, 12,658 people have voted today, Election Day.
12:00 noon Monroe county clerk’s emailed update According to Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne’s latest update, 14,659 people have voted so far today. Browne also reports the oldest and youngest voters so far—one is 89 years old and one who just turned 18 in September.
1:30 p.m. Monroe County clerk’s emailed update. According to Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne’s latest update, 16,469 voters have cast a ballot today—as of 1 p.m.
1:45 p.m. St. John’s Catholic Church There are no campaigns represented here. According to the election inspector, 101 people were standing in line here when the polls opened. The two ballot scanners are working smooth and have tallied 733 and 624 ballots, respectively. That’s 1,357 total voters so far today.’
2:15 p.m. Bloomington High School North. Representing Joe VanDeventer’s campaign for District 3 county commissioner is Joe’s oldest son, Heath. He says there have been no other campaigns present in the time he has been working, which is since around 9 a.m. The tally so far today for this voting location is 379 voters.
3 p.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update According to Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne’s latest update, 19,594 people have cast ballots today. It looks unlikely that the 2016 Election Day turnout of around 29,000 will be matched in the final three hours of voting.
3:05 p.m. 6th Street Walking from downtown to the Indiana University campus to visit the IMU polling station, The B Square saw this red-tailed hawk. It’s not a bald eagle, but it’s still a handsome bird.
3:15 p.m. Indiana Memorial Union Backpacks cannot be taken into the polling location, which is Alumni Hall. That includes the press. There’s a pile of backpacks outside on the floor. That means a lot of activity inside.
Inside, there is a line of students seated in chairs against the wall—33 of them by The B Square’s count. Another line is feeding the voter check-in station. The purpose of the two different lines is not clear. The presence of Monroe County election board members, Judith Benckart and John Fernandez probably means something has not gone completely to plan: Why are they here?
Fernandez lays it out: Election Central, where he and Benckart were stationed today, got several calls about provisional ballots at the IMU polling location—enough calls that he and Benckart headed over to campus to help sort things out.
According to Fernandez, there are a large number of university students who appeared at the location, who are registered to vote—but their registration is in some other Indiana county. Under Indiana election law, they have to be allowed to fill out a ballot, but that ballot is set aside as a “provisional ballot.” Provisional ballots get adjudicated by the election board 10 days after Election Day.
Fernandez explains it like this to frustrated students: Everybody who wants to vote can do that, by filling out a provisional ballot. But he continues by explaining how such ballots get adjudicated: Their name and other identifying information is compared to the registered voter rolls of Monroe County, and if there is not a match, then the ballot is not counted.
Those who are seated in the chairs against the wall still want to cast a provisional ballot, even though it will likely prove to be a futile effort. Fernandez says the inspector for the polling site is focused completely on handling provisional ballots.
Fernandez describes one student who is registered in Marion County, which uses vote centers—which allow anyone in the county to vote at every center. Instead of filling out a provisional ballot in Monroe County that had no good prospects of being adjudicated as valid, the Marion County voter headed up to the nearest polling location in Marion County.
A fair amount of the frustration on the part of students seems to be traceable to incorrect communication to them about which line they should be in. The B Square speaks to one young woman who is registered to vote in Vigo County, but was told to stand in the line for checking in to vote—not the line for filling out a provisional ballot. She is glum—she leaves without casting any kind of ballot.
Stationed outside Alumni Hall is Mark Fraley, who is associate director of IU’s Political and Civic Engagement (PACE) program. He’s educating prospective voters about the geographic elements of voter registration.
Bloomington city councilmember Sydney Zulich also arrives outside Alumni Hall. She tells the B Square she’s heard reports of students who are registered in Monroe County, but who are registered in a precinct other than those assigned to the IMU. (Only voters who live in the following precincts can vote at the IMU: Bloomington 5, Bloomington 18, Bloomington 19, and Bloomington 23).
Zulich says she’s concerned because she’s heard that such students are being told to just cast provisional ballots—which have the same futile prospects of being counted as those cast by students who are registered in a different county. Zulich is working to sort out how rides can be provided to the correct polling location in Monroe County.
At least one of the provisional ballots that is getting cast at the IMU stands a good chance of getting counted. Benckart describes how the missing element for one student is documentation of their address. The student has a utility bill with their address, which they can submit between now and the 10-day deadline after the election. When the election board adjudicates the provisional ballot, it will include the utility bill as documentation.
Rain has begun to fall, but the walk back downtown features sprinkles, not a downpour.
5:30 p.m. Monroe county clerk’s emailed update According to Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne’s latest update, 23,535 people voted today.
6:00 p.m. Election Central. An election worker who is opening mailed-in absentee ballots notes: “The polls are closed.” He continues slicing open envelopes. Anyone already in line at 6 p.m. has to be allowed to vote.
For results, see:
