Monroe County clerk on 2 vacancies: Offers for chief deputy clerk, election supervisor to be made before next election board meeting
Monroe County could have a new election supervisor and a new chief deputy clerk by late February or early March.
Those key positions are currently vacant, with early in-person voting in this year’s primaries set to start in 68 days.
News that the jobs could soon be filled came Thursday from Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne, when she updated her two colleagues on the county election board.
Browne said that before the board’s next meeting, which is set for March 7, she expects to make an offer to a candidate for each position.
After election supervisor Ryan Herndon resigned in mid-January, the League of Women Voters Bloomington-Monroe County sent an email to Browne and other county officials urging that “county officials” take action to ensure that staffing is in place to deliver “a safe election process with impartiality, consistency, and accuracy.”
As elected county clerk, Browne serves on the three-member county election board. But under state law, it’s just the clerk, not the election board or other county officials, that oversees election staff. There is a provision in state law that allows for an election board to assume responsibility for hiring election staff, but only if it has unanimous support.
Herndon served a relatively short time as election supervisor, from Aug. 14, 2023 through Jan. 11. In the year since Karen Wheeler left the job, on Feb. 3, 2023, the position was vacant for a three-month stretch, briefly filled, then followed by another two-month vacant span.
The chief deputy clerk’s position, which has typically helped oversee and support the election supervisor, has been vacant for the six months since Tressia Martin resigned at the end of July last year.
On Thursday, Browne gave her update in response to a question from board president John Fernandez, who is the Democratic Party’s appointee to the election board. The Republican Party’s appointee to the board is Judith Benckart. Browne is a Democrat.
After Benckart got confirmation from Browne that the clerk expects to make offers to candidates for both the election supervisor and the chief deputy clerk positions, Fernandez commented: “ Good—I think people will be glad to know that. Cool.”
Responding to a B Square question after Thursday’s election board meeting, Browne said she could not share any names at this point. But she said she would not be pushed into making a selection, just to put people in the positions. She added that she is confident in the security and accuracy of Monroe County’s elections in the coming cycle.
