Monroe County vote center study committee gets initial feedback from public
At a Wednesday evening meeting, held at Ellettsville’s town hall, four members of Monroe County’s 11-strong vote center study committee hosted a public meeting.
They wanted to hear feedback on the concept of converting the county’s voting locations to polling places where any registered voter can cast a ballot.
Monroe County is currently one of just 28 counties, out of 92 in the state of Indiana, that still use polling locations that are defined just for specific precincts.
Monroe County has 82 precincts, but most polling locations serve more than one precinct. That translates into around 29 polling locations in Monroe County.
The committee’s job is to make a recommendation on vote centers to the three-member county election board. A unanimous vote by the election board would be required, in order to enact vote centers in the county.
At most a dozen people attended Wednesday’s meeting, many of whom are connected to the local political scene.
Attendees did not seem opposed to the idea of converting to vote centers, but some had concerns about the potential for increased waiting times that could arise from a reduction in the number of polling locations.
They also wanted county election officials to make sure that there is enough publicity about the change, before it takes place.
One big takeaway from Wednesday’s meeting is that decision makers don’t expect that voter turnout would necessarily increase due to vote centers—but convenience for those who do choose to vote would be improved. Some cost savings are expected from the change.
On Wednesday, a question from Van Buren township trustee Rita Barrow drew out the fact that no change would be made for this year’s Nov. 5 general election. The first year when vote centers would be implemented is 2026—because next year no elections will take place.
Responding to the idea that the county’s webpage for elections needs to be improved, to disseminate information better, Monroe County clerk Nicole Browne described it as “a work in progress.”
County election supervisor Kylie Moreland added that she is working on creating social media accounts—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—for the county election division, to help improve outreach to the younger generation. About younger voters and social media, Moreland said, “That’s how they get their news.”
The conversion to vote centers could mean simply converting every existing polling place to a vote center where any registered voter could cast a ballot. But the switch to vote centers is generally understood to entail reducing the total number of locations in the county where people can vote.
Based on the minutes of the most recent vote center study committee meeting, the options being considered by the committee include: (1) not changing to vote centers at all; (2) converting every current polling to a vote center, but eventually reducing the number based on where people choose to vote; (3) establishing about 23 vote centers, which is about half a dozen fewer locations than now; and (4) establishing fewer than 23 vote centers.
Barrow advocated for at least one vote center per township. Monroe County has 11 townships, one of which is Polk Township, in the southeast corner of the county. Polk Township is currently served by a polling location at Burgoon Baptist Church. The Burgoon location got some discussion at Wednesday’s meeting, because not very many people vote there—it’s a sparsely populated area.
But for those people who live in Polk Township, eliminating the Burgoon location would mean a roughly 15-minute drive to reach the nearest other polling location that is currently used, which is Eastview Church of The Nazarene on Lampkins Ridge Road.
One attendee recalled the long wait times in 2020 at the polling place set up at Election Central, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The line wrapped around the block at 7th and Madison Street for the primaries and the general election.
The attendee did not want to repeat that same experience standing in line in connection with vote centers.
The long waits at Election Central in 2020 came in connection with early voting. In Monroe County, there has historically been only one place to vote early in person. The one early voting location works the same way that a vote center does—any registered voter can cast a ballot early at the location.
In the last few years, the one early voting location has been at the election operations building at 3rd and Walnut streets (aka the former NAPA building). By 2026, that building will almost certainly have been demolished, to make way for the expansion of the Monroe Convention Center.
Meeting attendee Randy Cassady wanted to know if increased voter turnout could be anticipated, if Monroe County adopts vote centers.(Cassady is the Republican Party’s nominee for Monroe County commissioner District 2, which means he is challenging incumbent Democrat Julie Thomas.)
Increased voter turnout due to adoption of vote centers is unlikely. Monroe County election supervisor Kylie Moreland indicated that a study done at Ball State University showed that vote centers by themselves do not increase voter turnout.
The study concluded that competitive races and good get-out-the-vote campaigns have a bigger impact on drawing people to the polls.
One impact the study found was that adding vote center sites as early voting locations does increase the number of voters who vote early, which reduces the pressure on polling sites on Election Day.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Browne said that early voting times would not be affected by a switch to vote centers. It’s even a possibility to add locations for early voting.
Reducing the number of voting locations on Election Day can mean fewer poll workers, which reduces cost, but only somewhat. Not every poll worker at a polling site that is eliminated can be eliminated—because the remaining polling sites would need some additional staffing.
But according to the study done at Ball State, an analysis of the costs of holding elections shows vote centers save money. According to the study: ”Every jurisdiction, on a cost-per-vote basis, showed substantial savings over traditional precincts. The bulk of the savings are attributed to direct labor costs.”
There’s also some cost savings connected with printing of ballots, if vote centers are adopted. Because any registered voter can cast a ballot at any vote center, every vote center has to be equipped to provide any of the dozens of ballot types that might be needed for a given election.
That means printing on demand, for each voter who actually appears at the polls, which is how early voting ballots are already handled in Monroe County. Printing only on demand means no unneeded ballots get printed.
The vote center study committee plans to hold additional meetings at other locations in the county to gather more feedback from the public. A decision on vote centers would likely come sometime in 2025.
Members of the vote center study committee who helped host Wednesday’s meeting in Ellettsville were: Stacy Kowalczyk, Deborah ‘Ralf’ Shaw, Alex Workman and Steve Volan.
The vote center study committee was created by the election board in July 2023, The committee held its first meeting in early December 2023.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Browne gave a reminder that a unanimous vote of the election board is required in order to establish vote centers. In 2011, the creation of vote centers in Monroe County foundered on the requirement of that unanimous vote.
Currently serving on Monroe County’s election board are Browne, Judith Benckart (Republican Party appointee), and John Fernandez (Democratic Party appointee)
Impact of Vote Centers on Turnout?
The B Square has broken down voter turnout numbers in the 92 counties in the state of Indiana in the most recent three presidential election years: 2012; 2016; and 2020. The numbers come from the Indiana Secretary of State’s office.
The three years worth of data is compiled into a single shared Google Sheet.
In the graphic below, within each year counties are sorted by voter turnout (the number of voters who actually cast a ballot compared to the number of registered voters. Monroe County’s row is highlighted in red. Rows highlighted in green are counties that were using vote centers for that election.
For all three years, Monroe County is consistently in the bottom one-third of Hoosiers counties, as measured by voter turnout.
Just eyeballing the graphic, vote centers don’t appear to be a magic bullet for generating better voter turnout.
