OK’d by Monroe County election board: 60 of about 400 provisional ballots, no impact on results
At 12:01 p.m. on Friday, Monroe County’s election board started its work to review the provisional ballots that were cast in the Nov. 5, 2024 election.
Out of the roughly 400 ballots, 60 were accepted as valid, while the others were rejected. There was no impact on the outcome of any of the races.
Noon was the deadline for “curing” some categories of provisional ballots, like those cast by someone who was not able to show the required identification on Election Day.
Such voters had 10 days to submit their identification to the voter registration office.
It took the three-member election board about three hours to review 390 provisional ballots. The numbering of the ballots went from 1 to 400, but skipped 323 through 332.
Working at a table in the Election Central building at 7th and Madison streets were election board members Judith Benckart, the Republican Party appointee, John Fernandez, the Democratic Party appointee, and Nicole Browne, who is the elected county clerk. Also at the table were the county election supervisor Kylie Farris, and election training specialist Ashley Lirot.
Under Indiana election law, a provisional ballot can be cast under certain conditions, such as when a voter’s eligibility is in question, their name is not on the poll list or they lack required identification. Letting voters cast provisional ballots leaves any dispute to be settled later, erring on the side of allowing a ballot to be cast.
Provisional ballots that were accepted fell into a few different categories—like the registration had been canceled when it should not have been. In some cases it was not clear why the voter had even cast a provisional ballot—because they were registered to vote, and appeared at the correct location. Those ballots were accepted.
Also accepted on Friday were some provisional ballots from voters who should have been allowed to vote under one of the “fail safe” scenarios, like when a voter’s name changes, or when they move within a precinct, or within the state of Indiana within 30 days of the election.
Of the 60 ballots that were accepted on Friday, over half fell into the category of absentee ballots that were initially either missing a signature or included a signature that did not match the one on file.
Ballots in that category were approved, if in the interim the voter had made a visit to Election Central to re-sign the ballot. Many in that category were apparently signed by spouses who just mixed up each other’s ballots and corresponding envelopes.
Most of the ballots that were rejected were from voters who were either not registered at all in the state of Indiana, or not in Monroe County.
Many such voters were registered in some other state and appeared at the Indiana Memorial Union (IMU) on the Indiana University campus based on an incorrect belief that they would be able to cast a provisional ballot and that it would be counted. At the IMU, there were 188 provisional ballots cast.
Some of Friday’s provisional ballots were rejected from voters who were registered in Monroe County but who tried to vote at the wrong polling location.
Attending the provisional ballot review was Debora (Ralf) Shaw, who serves as the League of Women Voters representative to the county’s vote center study committee.
Shaw tallied 21 ballots that were rejected because the voter tried to cast a ballot at the incorrect location. That can happen, because Monroe County currently uses a precinct-based poll location system, instead of a vote center system. In a vote center system, any county resident can cast a ballot at any voting location.
By early 2025, the vote center study committee is expected to make a recommendation on vote centers for Monroe County, which would be in time for the 2026 election. To adopt a vote center system would require a unanimous vote of the three-member election board.
